Soledad Acosta de Samper spoke English, traveled the world, wrote each day, and saved the paper clippings successful which her novels appeared to crook them into albums. She joined for love, had 4 daughters—one of them, a nun and a poet, published the mentation of the Novena de Aguinaldos that is sung during the 9 days starring up to Christmas successful Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador—founded 5 magazines, established herself arsenic a writer and historian, fought for women’s spot successful society, and resisted the censorship imposed connected her astir renowned pistillate protagonist contiguous successful Latin America: Dolores.
Acosta was 1 of the astir prolific writers of her clip among some antheral and pistillate writers. She wrote “twenty-one novels, forty-eight abbreviated stories, 4 plays, forty-three societal and literate studies, twenty-one humanities treatises, and founded and directed 5 newspapers (in which she herself contributed the bulk of the fabrication and nonfiction texts); she besides produced galore translations.” Like galore women writers of the nineteenth century, she was censored and aboriginal forgotten. Her procreation was 1 of thinkers, politically committed to defining however individuals were to beryllium shaped arsenic citizens of a civilized nation. This included, of course, the spot of women, who were perpetually relegated to soundlessness and submission and assigned work for the location and children. Acosta’s penning was politically engaged and openly opinionated.
Dolores is thing of a unicorn successful the signifier of translation for respective reasons.
The 1980s, fortunately, brought with them a feminism committed to revisiting and recovering the literate canon of women writers. Acosta was recovered during that decennary by pioneering scholars specified arsenic Monserrat Ordóñez and Carolina Alzate, whose teachings paved the mode for this translation project, done which I anticipation to proceed filling the gaps successful literate accumulation and assistance surrounding the author. It indispensable person been hard to situate her wrong a contented successful her ain time, but, similar truthful galore others, she was writing—as the scholar tin present spot successful this book—for the future. Her portrayal of societal customs appears astir fantastical successful airy of the translation undergone by her protagonist.
Dolores, titled aft its heroine, was written successful 1847. It tells the communicative of a young pistillate from nineteenth-century Bogotá who discovers a household concealed that gradually leads to her decline. Through her letters and diary we participate her interior world, afloat of reflections connected the meaning of decease and love, religion and nature, unwellness and youth. The publication was published successful the aforesaid twelvemonth arsenic María by Jorge Isaacs, a caller that has since been recognized arsenic Colombia’s foundational caller and has appeared successful much than 150 editions (while Dolores has had lone 4 implicit the past 150 years). Although it was possibly not recognized for its brilliance astatine the clip of publication, Dolores is contiguous the astir studied and critically reviewed of Acosta’s works.
Dolores is thing of a unicorn successful the signifier of translation for respective reasons. To commencement with, determination exists an English translation produced successful New York successful the precocious nineteenth century. We bash not cognize the translator’s sanction oregon the nonstop day of their work, since neither appears successful the printed version. It is uncommon for a modern translator to person entree to a mentation produced successful the aforesaid play arsenic the archetypal work, and this access offers unsocial opportunities. On the 1 hand, the translation serves arsenic a root for the idioms of nineteenth-century English; connected the other, arsenic grounds of the ideas that the translator held astir a Colombian pistillate writer.
For instance, determination are passages successful the English mentation successful which Dolores’s complexion is described arsenic “pure” oregon “white,” words that bash not look successful the Spanish manuscript, though the second does represent her with rosy cheeks and beauteous skin. In different moments, erstwhile Acosta devotes respective sentences to describing the customs of Bogotá astatine the time—many of them employing words present obsolete—the nineteenth-century translator opts for a substance of approximate equivalents and Spanish words explained (sometimes, though not always) done footnotes.
I decided to sphere the anglicisms and nineteenth-century syntactic structures utilized by the archetypal translator whenever they did not change the meaning of the root text.
Yet this is not the astir absorbing feature. In the archetypal English translation of Dolores, the full 3rd portion of the caller is omitted. The publication is simply a framed narrative: though Dolores is the protagonist, she is not the narrator; her communicative is told by her relative Pedro. In the archetypal part, his dependable predominates; the 2nd combines his words with the letters Dolores sends him. The 3rd section—the 1 eliminated successful the nineteenth-century translation—consists wholly of the protagonist’s diaries, successful which she writes successful which her voice, antecedently mediated done letters and recounted conversations, comes done directly, with marked intensity. This operation is simply a mode of circumventing the public’s penchant for a antheral narrator and allowing Dolores to person the last connection successful her ain story, without Pedro having to talk for her, arsenic Alzate notes—a speechmaking I share.
Though the lack of the 3rd portion of the publication is striking, the astir fascinating facet of the manuscript comes from an enactment of coauthorship that corrects it: Acosta de Samper herself translated, by hand, the omitted 3rd part. Or rather, she revisited it (not to accidental rewrote it). Every writer knows the temptation to support revising a substance indefinitely, arsenic good arsenic the acquisition of rereading a publication agelong aft it has been published. Time, distance, and acquisition crook america into editors and expanders. Translation, moreover, offers the anticipation of giving a substance thing similar a parallel life, successful which it tin beryllium successful different register. That is precisely what Acosta de Samper did upon returning to her caller Dolores. In her English version, the last conception abounds successful paraphrases and successful beauteous added passages that bash not look successful the archetypal Spanish text.
All of these reasons marque Dolores a peculiarly fascinating situation for a modern translator. This is however I chose to attack the text: I decided to sphere the anglicisms and nineteenth-century syntactic structures utilized by the archetypal translator whenever they did not change the meaning of the root text. Naturally, I did not see explanations unnecessary for a modern reader, nor did I adhd comments regarding contention oregon femininity that are absent from the original.
Whenever possible, I kept Spanish words that person nary nonstop translation and included their meanings successful the glossary, pursuing Alzate’s definitions successful the 2021 variation published by the Universidad de los Andes, which presents the authorized text. As for the stimulating—yet challenging—third part, successful which Acosta de Samper restores what is missing, but besides resorts to paraphrasing successful bid to accommodate the agelong sentences of Spanish syntax to the English version, I near them astir intact. Where I encountered passages of peculiar quality and poetic force, which besides adhd a furniture of complexity to the communicative and to the science of the character, I retained them, portion cautiously marking the opening and extremity of these additions successful the footnotes for funny readers who whitethorn privation to hint the transformations of the text.
Finally, I would similar to widen my deepest acknowledgment to Jessi Haley and Juliana Castro Varón for making Cita Press imaginable and for giving a location to thousands of women writers who, similar Soledad, bash not ever find a spot successful genuinely feminist and antiauthoritarian publishing circuits. I situation accidental the writer would beryllium delighted to spot Dolores scope truthful galore readers astir the world. Thank you, convey you.
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Image Adapted from Dolores by Mariana Sanín A., Cita Press, 2026 (CC BY-SA)
From Dolores by Soledad Acosta de Samper, published by Cita Press.
English (US) ·