In this commentary on two translations of Alejandro Zambra’s novel “Bonsai”, Mubashir Karim performs an exercise in “literary appreciation” that functions equally well as a concise comparative study of the two translations—one by Megan McDowell and the other by Carolina de Robertis. As the commentary progresses, the linguistic expression of the original novel (in Spanish) permeates into the style of writing employed by professor Karim in his deep engagement with the two translations into English by McDowell and de Robertis.
Writing all the way from Kashmir about the two translations of a celebrated novel by a Chilean writer and poet, Mubashir Karim’s commentary directly or indirectly prompts a comparison with Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali’s poem “I See Chile in My Rearview Mirror” as a second instance where Kashmir salutes Chile and Latin America by extension—perhaps because there is a similitude to be found in the experience of multiple histories by multiple subjects whose contemporaneity converges in the study and appreciation of the literary craft, linguistic barriers notwithstanding (“no obstante”).
Given the references to explicit uses of language in the novella, reader discretion is advised.
