Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include Empire of Dreams (1988), Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) and United States of Banana (2011).
Braschi writes cross-genre literature and political philosophy in Spanish, Spanglish, and English. Her work is a hybrid of poetry, fiction, theatre, memoire, manifesto, and philosophy. Her writings explore the enculturation journey of Hispanic immigrants, and dramatize the three main political options of Puerto Rico: independence, colony, and state.
(Wikipedia)
Braschi on Translation, Temporality, and the Future
Braschi’s novel resists translation both because it is already in translation—and translation cannot be translated—and because it touches on the untranslatable, on the limits of language and meaning.
See also the conversation video with Giannina Braschi.
- Braschi, Giannina. Yo-Yo Boing! Las Vegas, NV: AmazonCrossing, 2011.
There is a translation of this text: Braschi, Giannina. Yo-Yo Boing! Trans Tess O’Dwyer. Las Vegas, NV: AmazonCrossing, 2011. But I recommend that, if at all possible, you read the untranslated original, which switches between English, Spanish, and Spanglish. This code-switching is an important part of the book, and is (obviously) lost in translation. NB I also think that this text (whether the original or the translation) can only be ordered direct from Amazon.
With Giannina Braschi
A conversation with author Giannina Braschi
Braschi videos
Giannina Braschi: 2012 National Book Festival:
The Return of the Sardine. A Conversation with Giannina Braschi:
Giannina Braschi, Mirror Trans Beauty, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas | Nueva York:
- Jones, Ellen. “‘I Want my Closet Back’: Queering and Unqueering Language in Giannina Braschi’s Yo-Yo Boing!” Textual Practice 34.2 (2020): 283-301.
- Torres-Padilla, José L. “When Hybridity Doesn’t Resist: Giannina Braschi’s Yo-Yo Boing!” Complicating Constructions: Race, Ethnicity, and Hybridity in American Texts. Ed. Audrey B. Thacker and David S. Goldstein. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011. 290-307.
- Van Haesendonck, Kristina. ¿Encanto o espanto? Identidad y nación en la novela puertorriqueña actual. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2008.
The piña colada—a mix of rum, pineapple juice, and coconut milk or cream—is claimed as Puerto Rico’s “official drink.” One of its origin stories claims that it was invented in 1954 by Ramon “Monchito” Marrero, bartender at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan. At the time, the hotel had only just been built: it had been a project of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, a government-owned agency that helped to engineer “Operation Bootstrap,” the post-war transformation of the island’s economy from plantations to industrialism. Signalling this imagined bold move into an industrial future, the hotel’s architecture rejected gestures to the past (such as the Spanish Revivalism popular in Southern California) in favour of embracing the Modern Movement; at its opening, the hotel bar in particular was noted as a striking example of modernist styling, celebrating Puerto Rico’s arrival as a destination for the nascent jet set. But Operation Bootstrap also led to unemployment in the countryside, and mass migration both to the island’s cities and, further afield, above all to New York and surrounding area. Today, almost two-thirds of all Puerto Ricans live in the continental United States: 5.5 million, compared to the 3.5 million who live on the island itself.
Braschi questions
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
Have you ever experienced a situation like the ones portrayed in the book, meaning have you stayed long periods in a country that is not your own and where they do not speak your mother tongue? If yes, do you see your experience reflected in this text?
Why do you think it is hard to be a Latin-American immigrant in the USA? What do you think of the way in which Magdalena and Maxine [Who are they? –Jon] manage their bicultural background?
Can you give an example from the text in which Spanglish is used particularly effectively? Would the passage have the same effect solely in one language? Why or why not?
How did you find the choice of languages (Spanish, English and Spanglish) for this novel? Do you think it has an impact like the one I talked about? Would you rather have it only in one language?
Did you enjoy the bilingual nature of this book or did it make you get lost more often? If the book was translated into only one language, would the reader get a similar experience out of the thoughts and conversations of the characters?
What do you think was being constantly asked in this book?
Do you have any words, phrases, or discourses in mind that you feel are untranslatable? Language that can only be understood and appreciated in its original form?
