It seems fitting to crown our triple Women in Translation feature with something of a triple threat. On the one hand, Argentine Ariana Harwicz’s work has been published in fifteen languages, most notably English: her debut novel Die, My Love (translated by Carolina Orloff and Asymptote’s own Editor-at-Large Sarah Moses) was a 2018 International Booker and 2020 BTBA nominee. And yet, despite a hailed career in writing, Harwicz feels almost closer to translation—a love partly fueled by her experience as a longtime expat in France. Her latest book deals with exactly that: in the short and deliciously sweet Desertar (forthcoming in Spanish from Mardulce), she and French-Argentine translator Mikaël Gómez Guthart ponder the twists and turns of the craft.
But Harwicz isn’t just a woman in (and in love with) translation; adding to her appeal here is that, much to her chagrin, her work has been routinely couched in terms of her womanhood. In this interview with Blog Editor Josefina Massot, she talks about how even well-intentioned feminism can be used for literary profit, what it’s like to give voice to a man, and why she views her translators as lovers. Dealing no cheap punches or punchlines pour la galerie, Harwicz isn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers—and that is, in part, what makes her such a welcome voice in the context of WIT: thoughtful criticism is arguably the highest form of respect.
Josefina Massot (JM): In Desertar, you claim books are no longer a linguistic fact but a “thing,” a product of the publishing market—which, in turn, often bows to ideological trends. One of these trends is a somewhat bastardized feminism—a particular strand of feminist discourse that you’ve also questioned. I can’t help but ask, then, at the risk of stirring up controversy: how do you feel about Women in Translation Month to begin with? No one doubts the good intentions of many of its advocates (Asymptote among them), but it’s worth asking whether it might not be exploited by others.
Ariana Harwicz (AH): It’s a very complex issue, and any attempt to annul, minimize, reduce, or stifle that complexity leads to a dangerous trap. If I told you that I straight-out condemned this celebration, this month devoted to women in English translation, I’d be sabotaging a literary movement that I, too, celebrate: at the end of the day, I’m one of these women, and being translated into English has opened many doors to other languages, cultures, and translations (pretty much all of them, in fact, except for Hebrew); there’s nothing more interesting to me than infiltrating these new environments. Some of my opinions are pretty different from those of many female colleagues, or just people I run into in general, but in order to be heard, read, or access the ongoing literary and political conversation, I must first be translated. If I get wrapped up in my own thoughts or turn to ostracism, I’ll only lose.
So, do I support the increased visibility of female literary discourse and poetics through initiatives like WIT? Absolutely. Do I support the application of gender-based discourse to literature? No. Do I support the marketing of women or social, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities? No. Do I think this rhetoric is a sign of the times? Yes. Do I think the publishing market profits from it? Yes. Do I think some presses abuse it? Yes, many do. But again, to be clear, I don’t condemn the drive for visibility—merely its exploitation.
JM: Speaking of exploiting feminist rhetoric as a marketing strategy, you’ve also complained about editors’ attempts to promote you as a female writer. You’ve said that you’ve had to fight in every language to avoid blurbs like “a feminist novel by a female rebel,” and that you weren’t always successful. How have publishers in different countries handled the promotion of your work in this regard?
AH: When the French translation of my first novel, Matate, amor (Crève, mon amour) was published by Seuil in January, I met up with several distributors. This is typical in France: the author holds a meeting with all the small bookshop owners. There are tons of independent bookstores here (which I guess is also the case in Germany and other European countries), and of course, they’re ultimately more important than the big chains in promoting non-commercial, non-bestselling literature. When I met with them, my editor (a wonderful editor and translator, too) described my book as “feminist punk” or something. I remember half-jokingly correcting him, but in doing that, I was also taking a political stance. We then had a chat and took a close look at the front and back covers of the book, after which I told him to scrap the term “feminist.” I always weigh in on this kind of thing, because it’s ultimately all about politics—the author’s and the text’s. For instance, if someone tries to push a sexy picture of me, or some crowd-pleasing slogan or a title that just doesn’t fit, I’ll have my say and they’ll usually listen.
I think I had the same issue everywhere. The novel has been translated into fifteen languages and published in Spanish by different presses, and I think they all tried to capitalize on the current moment, which clearly benefits female writing—especially if it’s strong, violent, and combative, which mine is. Still, there are differences among editors, because even if they all think this kind of marketing will benefit the book, some are not willing to make literary concessions to accommodate it; they’re not ultimately crowd-pleasers. Others are.
At any rate, I try not to be labeled as a feminist writer because I don’t want to be pigeonholed within a particular brand of politics. Besides, I don’t write gender-based literature and I don’t like to feel that I’m being exploited—that the author’s condition is being exploited or taken advantage of. I’d feel the same way if I were gay, black, or had survived a military dictatorship. I don’t think any of that belongs in a book cover or flap. One shouldn’t try to market that.
JM: That kind of promotional straightjacketing is, as you’ve pointed out elsewhere, a form of censorship; so is editors’ reluctance to publish certain works or fragments thereof. In an article you wrote with Edgardo Scott for El País, you talk about the publishing market’s resistance to allegedly taboo subjects, and you’ve never shied away from those. Do you think that’s made it harder to get translated in some countries?
AH: To be honest, I haven’t run into much censorship or resistance. I think it ties back to my earlier point about it being advantageous, in certain ways, for women to be women in today’s world—which doesn’t mean it’s easy, of course: it’s incredibly complex, a never-ending struggle. I just mean to say that I haven’t encountered much resistance myself. The exception, to an extent, might be Degenerado (Degenerate), my latest novel, whose narrator and protagonist is a lot harder to empathize with. He’s been accused of raping a little girl, so he’s set to lose. He’s a golem, a monster, someone who must be lynched for embodying the worst in mankind: old age, depravity, violence, misogyny, pedophilia. I really tried to make him the epitome of evil and perversion and adopt that stance; that’s what made the book so hard to write.
Luckily, I didn’t experience much resistance from my publisher in Spanish, Anagrama (which is why I’m so proud to be a part of their catalogue), but I did when it came to translating the book. I’ve been told it’ll be near impossible to publish in English, for example, given certain aspects of American literary culture. Amazingly, translations were commissioned in Romanian and Arabic, but they were put on hold due to a real-life case of pedophilia. Meanwhile, my French editor told me the book could never be published here because it gives voice to the executioner, and only novels from the victim’s perspective are allowed.
JM: You’ve said elsewhere that you still tried to do the protagonist justice, to add some truth and beauty to his discourse—an aesthetic form of justice, I suppose, given that there’s hardly room for ethical allowances there. What was it like to adopt that male voice, especially after having penned so many women? I ask with particular interest because I’ve toyed with the masculine viewpoint in casual writing, too; it was a whole new ball game, not just intellectually but erotically.
AH: I’ve never constructed a male narrative voice from an erotic perspective, from a place of desire, so I’m not familiar with that kind of experience, although it could be fascinating. In fact, you’ve just given me an idea: I’d be very interested in doing something like that. It’s also true that my female characters habitually cross gender boundaries; they cross-dress, in a way, flirting with and inhabiting masculinity. But yes, writing Degenerado was an uphill battle. It was the novel I struggled with the most, actually, and that had to do with my leap towards two forms of ultimate “otherness”: criminality and masculinity. They represent the polar opposite of what I am, and therefore demanded a great deal of physical, mental, and ontological effort. Then again, that was the challenge I was after to begin with.
JM: While we’re on the subject of the male voice, have you been translated by any men so far? If so, what was your relationship with them? Did the gender difference add something fresh or unexpected to the text? And if you haven’t yet had the experience, do you think that it would? What, how, why?
AH: It’s a good question. I don’t think I’d ever consciously stopped to think about it, so thanks for bringing it up. It turns out all my translators have been women, which is interesting. I do have plenty of male editors, but I would’ve loved to be translated by a man in some of these languages. Again, though, I don’t think of literature and art in terms of gender. I mean, what was George Sand, who took on a male name and dressed like a man? What was Coco Chanel, who designed incredibly feminine women’s clothes but was incredibly masculine herself? What was Simone de Beauvoir: was she a lesbian, was she bisexual? She was a woman, of course, but did she write as a woman? Being a woman and writing as a woman are two different things, right? It’s a matter of enunciation. I don’t think of myself as a woman when I write; like I said, I try to cross-dress as much as possible. At any rate, I would definitely enjoy working with a male translator, having the ability to leap towards a more distinct “other” and play with my characters’ deconstructed masculinity and femininity.
JM: You’ve made love and war with your translators. On the one hand, you’ve spoken of a romantic bond almost akin to marriage—“the writer and translator joined in sickness and in health”—and to the early stages of a couple’s sex life. You’ve even spoken of your Polish translator’s refusal to meet with you as a romantic slight. The exchange with your French translator, on the other hand, was often martial, bordering on “trench warfare.” Could you share other love or war stories of the kind? No need to name names, of course.
AH: Some of my translators were almost inscrutable, that is, martial in the sense of granting me no access to their work, no relationship to the text or say in the act of translation; most of them did, though. And yes, the truth is that in almost every case I experienced the partnership as something of a couple—be it a couple in love, in the early, passionate stages of a relationship, or an old, distant couple on the verge of breaking up. That’s how I see it, though perhaps it’s a way of making a game out of it . . . But I do feel that I struck up a romance with some of my translators in the beginning, and then we ended it like lovers often do: by no longer talking to each other, or like an old marriage that gradually dissolves.
The exchange was more sentimental in other cases, like with my Hebrew translator. Hebrew is the language of my childhood, the one I grew up with at home, and this was also the first translation of my work, so it was very emotionally charged. My connection to certain languages has played a role in it as well. I understand Portuguese, and to some extent English, but Polish and Turkish and German are completely sealed off to me. And the age of my translators was a factor too: my Polish and Hebrew translators were very young, but my German translator was about seventy and had built a prestigious career translating all of García Márquez’s work; she had certain literary references at hand, certain linguistic tools, that the others lacked. Every case was different, but they all had an element of romance.
Transcribed and translated from a series of Spanish audios by Josefina Massot
Photo credit: Alejandro Meter
Ariana Harwicz (Buenos Aires, 1977) has lived in rural France since 2007. Often compared to Nathalie Sarraute and Virginia Woolf, she is one of the most radical figures in contemporary Argentine literature. Her prose is marked by violence, eroticism, irony, and a direct critique of the clichés surrounding family and conventional relationships. She wrote three novels as part of “an involuntary trilogy” on passion and motherhood: Matate, amor in 2012 (published in English as Die, My Love, 2017), La débil mental in 2014 (Feebleminded, 2019), and Precoz in 2015 (Precocious, forthcoming). Die, My Love was nominated for the First Book Award at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2017, shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize in 2018, longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2018, and shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award in 2020. Harwicz’s fourth novel, Degenerado (Degenerate), was published by Anagrama in 2019. Her work has been adapted for the stage and performed in Spain, Argentina, and Israel, among others. It has been translated into fifteen languages, including English, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Romanian, and Greek. Her stories have appeared in Granta, Letras Libres, Babelia, The White Review, The Guardian, Quimera, and in various anthologies in Argentina and Israel.
Josefina Massot was born and lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied Philosophy at Stanford University and worked for Cabinet Magazine and Lapham’s Quarterly in New York City, where she later served as a foreign correspondent for Argentine newspapers La Nueva and Perfil. She is currently a freelance writer, editor, and translator, as well as a blog editor at Asymptote.
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