Domesticating memory: Jana Hensel and Rigoberta Menchu in translation

This dissertation examines the role of translations and translators in constructing and disseminating memory across nations, languages, and cultures. I argue that life narratives in translation make linguistic and cultural differences more visible as translation transforms the text to reflect the collective memory of the target community. The first of two examples is Jefferson Chase's translation of Jana Hensel's Zonenkinder (2002), published as After the Wall: Confessions of an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next (2008). Hensel's memoir offers a nostalgic reflection on her childhood, which was closely intertwined with the state structure and political organization of the German Democratic Republic. However, the English translation transforms Hensel's memoir into a much stronger political critique of East Germany and reflects the context of American perceptions informed by the Cold War and American-Soviet relations. My second example is a pair of testimonios from Rigoberta Menchu: Me llamo Rigoberta Menchu y asi me nacio la conciencia (1985), translated into English by Ann Wright under the title I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (1984), and Rigoberta, la nieta de los mayas, also translated by Ann Wright and published as Crossing Borders---both published in 1998. I argue that Menchu's narratives were transformed to appeal to the emerging interest in subaltern studies in the United States and that this transformation further illustrates the impossibility of the subaltern to "speak" to the dominant culture as different parties intervene into the textual production of her narratives for their own agendas and interests.;Life narratives in translation highlight the influence of cultural constructions (in this case collective memory) on translation decisions and the acknowledgement of such influence is especially important in the context of life narratives because readers often presume to have direct access to the narrator's voice and perspective. However, my comparative analysis of these life narratives in translation with their originals underscores that these translations are the culmination and mingling of multiple interests of many who intervene and add their own layers of interpretation to the narrator's voice as the texts are made available to another language community.