Translation and trauma: The function of translation/interpretation in the theatre of Juan Mayorga

Juan Mayorga has often introduced translators and interpreters in his plays as mediators in scenarios of societal trauma. This article considers how his plays express a theory of translation using the field of translation studies itself, relying on Susan Bassnett’s Translation Studies (2014) and André Lefevere’s Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (1992), which postulate that translation is an ideological function that can manipulate language, thought and therefore reality. Mayorga’s work on Walter Benjamin is well known, so it follows that Benjamin’s thinking on translation has influenced him, as his plays codify Benjamin’s conception of translation, expressed in The Translator’s Task ([1923] 2002), as a blending of poetry and doctrine, which is able to leave an indelible mark on history. Likewise, Mayorga’s plays have dealt with language and translation and how they can be a double-edged sword capable of poisoning or saving someone, as expressed in El golem ( The Golem ) (2022). The objective will be to discuss Mayorga’s insertion of the figure of the translator into his plays and his depiction of the act of translation and the mark it leaves, in the sense that language alters or generates new realities or masks trauma. The works analysed include Animales nocturnos ( Nocturnal Animals ), El traductor de Blumemberg ( The Translator of Blumemberg ), Una carta de Sarajevo ( A Letter from Sarajevo ), La intérprete ( The Interpreter ) and El golem ( The Golem ). The article concludes that translation is not just a dramatic technique but in fact acquires a greater significance in these plays.