“Writing is translating” — José Saramago and translation

Abstract

Saramago left us his conviction that “we are all translators” and that “writing means translating”. This article aims to show that many aspects of Saramago’s life and work can be approached from a translational per­spective, as there is still a gap of critical literature on the subject. Sara­mago’s thought on translation will be first explained in general terms, through a brief comparison with Walter Benjamin, and then specifically in terms of cultural translation, through what he understood as iberism and transibericity. The numerous texts and interviews in which Sarama­go reflected on intra- and extra-Iberian relations allow us to analyse him today as a cultural translator. He defended the necessity of an intra-Iberi­an solidarity capable of preserving differentiated identities, and drew our attention to the need for a trans-Iberian political-cultural translation. I will argue that Saramago translated Luso and Spanish ethnocentrism into three key ideas. Firstly, the multicultural character of the Iberian Peninsula, which is a historically incontestable fact. Secondly, that Ibe­rian cultures, without making them uniform, would share a common basis that differentiates them, in turn, from Europe. And thirdly the idea of transibericity as a “task of translating, while respecting the place from which [we] came and the place to which [we] are going”, as a dialogue with the alternative doxa of post-colonial cultures.