This book is the result of a long engagement with modern poetry, the practice and theory of literary translation, and the scholarly field of comparative literature. It is also a work that is intrinsically connected to my own personal transatlantic journey that has taken me from my native Granada, Spain, to Dublin, Ireland, and Irvine, Los Angeles, New Brunswick, New York, and now St. Louis, in the United States. Many wonderful places in one impressive journey. Therefore, there is a very long list of people I need to acknowledge.
I first started seriously reading poetry at Trinity College Dublin in 1997. I was able to work there with arguably the best three Americanists working in the Republic of Ireland today: Philip Coleman, Michael Hinds, and Stephen Matterson. Philip has been my tutor, mentor, and friend since I first met him in 1997. He has been an Irish blessing in more ways than he can imagine. Michael introduced me to the work of John Ashbery—an event that proved to be crucial later in my life—and generously supported my attempts to publish and translate American poetry into Spanish, including an invitation to spend a few days in the South of France. Dublin is also the home of two people who took care of me innumerable times: Adrian Carr and Jean Hoey. Without Adrian and Jean I wouldn’t have finished my degree at Trinity, and without Adrian I simply wouldn’t know a hundredth of the music I love, and two of my dearest friends.
Thanks in part to Tom and Anne-Louise Fisher (family and friends), I was able to work as a literary translator for the publisher Random House Mondadori, in Barcelona. I will always be grateful to Andreu Jaume for trusting in my abilities as a literary translator at a relatively young age and for hiring me on the spot to translate the work of Will Self, as well as for believing in my suggestion to translate Ashbery’s A Wave into Spanish. I wouldn’t know much about the practice of literary translation if Andreu hadn’t given me such a wonderful opportunity in 2001.
During the last ten years I have been extremely fortunate to be able to work in the United States with a group of extraordinary scholars, teachers, mentors, and students, who have not only shaped the way I think about literary and cultural studies but who have ultimately helped me develop as a person. None of this would have been possible without the institutional and financial support of the Fulbright Commission in Spain, the Ministerio of Educación y Ciencia of the Government of Spain, and the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Government, which generously granted me a Fulbright Scholarship to complete my doctoral program in comparative literature at Rutgers University. There is no doubt that my life has been marked by my experience as a foreign Fulbright Scholar in the United States.
From the first graduate seminar I took at Rutgers, Billy Galperin has carefully monitored my development as a scholar not only with his characteristic brilliance and enthusiastic energy, but also with the utmost generosity. I am also extremely grateful to Richard Sieburth, who has always welcomed me at his Washington Square quarters throughout the years, and who has been kind enough to share his incredible knowledge and inspiring expertise on modern poetics and translation every time I knocked at his door. Ben Sifuentes-Jáuregui and Nicholas Rennie have helped me enormously along the way too. I also thank Jacques Lezra for generously agreeing to read a previous version of this book. Brent Edwards’s work has been a key source of inspiration, and he is a model for the kind of scholar I wanted to become since I took his Serial Poetics seminar at Rutgers. I am extremely grateful to him too.
The Comparative Literature Program at Rutgers provided the perfect intellectual environment to pursue all my interests and, thankfully, great curricular and funding opportunities to be able to do so, the Transliteratures Fellowship in particular. Most important, however, was the support that I always received from everyone in the program. I particularly thank the different graduate directors during my time at Rutgers for all their time and caring encouragement: Janet Walker, Richard Serrano, Alessandro Vettori, and Elin Diamond. I also acknowledge Susan Martin-Márquez for being the astounding Peninsularist that she is and a superb mentor. Before going to Rutgers I spent a crucial year of my life at the University of California, Irvine. In addition to meeting my wife there, I was also lucky enough to be able to work with four exceptional scholars who have greatly influenced the way I think about my work: John Carlos Rowe, Gabriele Schwab, Martin Schwab, and Jeff Barrett.
Since July 2009, I have had the pleasure to work at Washington University in St. Louis as an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish. The level of institutional support, professional encouragement, and spirit of collegiality I have enjoyed at Washington University has been simply outstanding. In fact, I would not have been able to complete this book in this country without it. I would particularly like to express my gratitude in this regard to Nancy Berg, Jonathan Cohen, Elzbieta Sklodowska, Kathy Steiner-Lang, Harriet Stone, Dean Gary Wihl, as well as Melanie Keeney and her staff, for helping me beyond expectations at a particularly tough period in my life. Without them things wouldn’t have worked out as well as they have, which is a remarkable thing in itself. Also, when I needed help, the most amazing group of people responded: I will be forever grateful to John Ashbery (he should be first, plus his last name starts with A), Carolina Díaz, Representative Maurice Hinchey, Sacra Jaimez, David Kermani, Nicolás Latorre, Michael Leong, Suzanne Jill Levine, Mike McGrath, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Ray Nargizian, Isabel Pérez, Catherine Porter, James Ramey, Fernando de Villena, and Pauline Yu (Philip Coleman, Billy Galperin, Nicholas Rennie, and Richard Sieburth also helped here too).
My two current Chairs, Harriet Stone and Lynne Tatlock, have been extremely supportive in every way imaginable since day one. They both have also read numerous sections of this book and provided extremely relevant feedback along the way. I thank also all my colleagues in the Committee on Comparative Literature and in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Washington University, and particularly those who have directly or indirectly contributed ideas to my project, or who have read sections of the book: Billy Acree, Nancy Berg, Nina Davis, Rob Henke, Emma Kafalenos, Mike Lützeler, Nacho Sánchez Prado, Pepe Schraibman, and Akiko Tsuchiya. Bill Maxwell in English also provided invaluable feedback on the early stages of the publication process. I also thank the Center for the Humanities at Washington University (Gerald Early, Jian Leng, Erin McGlothlin) for their support of the Transatlantic Crossings Reading Group I have been convening with Jessica Hutchins, Nicholas Tamarkin, and Andia Augustin since 2010. This reading group has provided an excellent opportunity to explore some of the ideas developed in this book. Thanks to Jessica, Nick, Andia, Mike, and all other members of the group for their energy and enthusiasm regarding transatlantic studies. Sarah Hennessey, thank you, for helping me with everything, always.
This manuscript made it to Helen Tartar thanks to Jody Greene. The book could not have gone to better hands, and I am extremely grateful to Jody for suggesting Helen. At Fordham University Press I thank Tom Lay, Wil Cerbone, Fredric Nachbaur, and the Editorial Board. Helen and Tom put together an impressive group of readers who have shaped what the book is today. I want to share my enormous gratitude to the two anonymous readers and to Juli Highfill for providing me with numerous brilliant comments and suggestions to considerably improve the book. Tim Roberts at the American Literatures Initiative has been a superb managing editor, and I am very grateful to Teresa Jesionowski for her invaluable patience and wise assistance with the manuscript during the copyediting process.
Finally, I wouldn’t be here without my family. My mother, Teresa Infante, is the bravest woman I know—and one of the smartest—and I owe her an essential part of who I am as a son, a father, and ultimately as a human being. And Mike Harrison is a nice guy, too, a surprisingly great choice for a stepfather, all the way from Leeds via Sharm el-Sheikh. My grandparents, Vicente II Infante del Castillo and Adelaida Fernández Ariza, have always been there for me, and I will always love them for their unconditional love and my beautiful and warm memories growing up with them. All the gratitude and love in the world go to my parents-in-law, John and Veronica Zorigian, for their hospitality, support, and especially for managing to take care so well of Jamie before I showed up that night with a bunch of flowers and an empty stomach. Jason and Christopher, thank you for being the brothers I always wanted to have.
This book is dedicated to my wife, Jamie, our daughter, Isabela, and our son, Nicolas. Jamie is the one and only reason why my heart ticks, my soul keeps getting bigger, my head spins, and my writing flows, plus, at this point, there is no doubt that she is my destiny—a gorgeous destiny if there ever was one. Isabela has been the light of my life since she was born and the drive to go far and beyond where I thought I could ever go, just because she is my baby and a spectacular ballet dancer, volleyball player, singer, and the prettiest big sister ever. Nico is my superhero ball player, a musical genius, and, with Isabela, the sweetest thing in the world. I am blessed with the best family in the cosmos, as Huidobro would say. The three of you are my life, my source of inspiration, and my true original passion, so I don’t need to thank you: I can only love you with my whole heart. Os amo con todo mi corazón.