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A Tale of Two Translation Programs; Politics, the Market, and Rockefeller Funding for Latin American Literature in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Deborah Cohn
Deborah Cohn*
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Abstract

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In the 1960s, the Cuban Revolution sparked great interest in Latin America throughout the United States. Not coincidentally, the promotion and translation of literature from Latin America increased dramatically during this period. This essay explores the interplay of market and political forces in the promotion of Latin American literature in the United States through an examination of two programs funded by Rockefeller family philanthropies during the 1960s and 1970s: a translation subsidy program supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and administered by the Association of American University Presses; and the Translation Program of the Center for Inter-American Relations, which was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. I trace both programs' efforts at working the U.S. market to promote works and authors. I also study the political motivations fostering these efforts, exploring the extent to which these programs both sought to promote cross-cultural understanding and tried to further U.S. foreign policy interests.

Resumen

Resumen

La traducción y diseminación de la literatura latinoamericana en los Estados Unidos empezó a tener éxito durante los años sesenta, reflejo del gran interés que la revolución cubana estimuló en la región. Este ensayo examina el papel del mercado y de la política, así como la relación entre ambas fuerzas, en la promoción de la literatura latinoamericana en los Estados Unidos. Se estudian en particular dos programas de subvención de traducciones patrocinados por filantropías de la familia Rockefeller en los años 60 y 70. El primero de ellos fue organizado por la Association of American University Presses con fondos de la Fundación Rockefeller, y el segundo formó parte del Programa de Literatura del Center for Inter-American Relations, el cual recibió fondos del Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Tras identificar los esfuerzos de ambos programas por estimular el mercado literario estadounidense para promocionar obras y autores latinoamericanos, este ensayo investiga también sus metas políticas, y se pregunta hasta qué punto ambos programas buscaban fomentar las relaciones culturales entre los Estados Unidos y América Latina al mismo tiempo que intentaban avanzar los intereses políticos de los Estados Unidos en la región.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 2006 , pp. 139 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the Rockefeller Archive Center for the fellowship that allowed me to conduct research on this project, and to Erwin Levold for his assistance. I am also indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the fellowship that has given me time to conduct my research; any views, findings, or conclusions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the NEH. I am also grateful to the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and to its director, Mona Frederick, for a fellowship that has been invaluable to my work on this project. Thanks to Suzanne Jill Levine, Alfred Mac Adam, Sophia McClennen, Dan Shapiro, Jon Smith, and Steve Stowe for their comments and other assistance with this essay.

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