9. PROUST’S OREO Layla Benitez-James For the past few years, I've written and rewritten this line in journals and proposals: ltrary translation is a tool to make more vivid the relationships between Affo-descendent people in the Americas and around the world, I keep this sentiment close’ to my heart and imagine how disparate stories might be traced back and connected at a strong, central point. The quote comes fiom translator and poet Aaron Coleman, whom T in- terviewed for the Asymptote Podcast in 2018. He'd spoken on a pane! with John Keene which inspired Keene's essay “Translating Poetry, ‘Translating Blackness” and I set about interviewing the panellists to clarify my own questions about identity and translation. Keene's essay notes that were there more translations of Black writers into English, "qe would have a cleater sense of the connections and commonalities, as well as the differences aétoss the African Diaspora.” In my first translation workshop at the University of Houston, we compared English ‘translations of Proust's madeleine episode. My professor wanted to’ emphasize how we can, 25 translators, go too far in trying to make the translation fit a particular target language and con- text by suggesting how ridiculous it would be vo make Proust's rmadeleine into a chocolate chip cookie or an Oreo to get ata USS. ver~ sion of nostalgia. As the only Black person in that workshop, Oreo landed differently for me. No one else batted an eye, but being a Black, ‘mixed-race gic] who had grown up in Texas and who was a bit nerdy, ry associations with that particular cookie were that I had often! heard T cnn" Posy Tanling Bacne Poy Foundation Hare Blo, Cigna Pubes: Ape 280, 206136 Violent Phenomena it directed at me, meaning that I was Black on the outside but very white om the inside 9 Oreo would often surface as a reaction to behaviour deemed “not Black” or “not Black enough,” and I can’t help but think that reading Proust ot taking a translation workshop would both fall into that cat- egory. Once I got to high school, remember one boy who was overly fond of the term Oreo would also sing, white gil trapped fn a Black girls body whenever we crossed paths in the hall. ‘You might think, as I did, that the madeleine’s shell shape means it originated in a coastal town. France has so much coast that when I first started looking into the little cake's origins, I was certain I'd find its form inspired by the sea. I thought about making a little pilgrimage to the madeleine’s birthplace, until I leamed it came ftom Commercy and Liverdun, two areas of the Lorraine region that couldn't be more interior. The scallop shell is an abundant marker of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and all over Spain you can see little shells etched in the stones on the sides of buildings or on agstones on any one of the many routes, In French, scallops are-called caquilles Saint- Jacques, named for a Saint who symbolizes one of the most important pilgrimages for Christians. The lines on the shell come from different directions at its edges, but they join at the top, just as many paths come together at Santiago de Compostela. 1 first baked madeleines around 2003, and people often ask if I've read Proust. used to nod, trying to acknowledge the connection with- out actually lying about having read the French tome. I must admit that 1 still haven't. I've tried listening to Remembrance of Things Past on audio book and even listened to the opening in the original language several times on the occasions when I was definitely going to learn French, and it embarrasses me that I want people to think I’m fancy. In Proust: original, he talks about ces géteauz courts et dodus appelés Petites Madeleines qui semblent avoir &t8 moulds dans la valve rainrée d'une coqulle de Saint- _Jocques (those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines which look as though they had been moulded inthe fluted scallop ofa pilgrim’sshell.1n C.K. Scott Monerief’s translation)? ¥ Prous, Masel, Sat Way: Ramen of Tig Pe, Voune Ove Haaed From The French By C.K Sto Moncief{ Hesay Hol and Compny, 1922 The Project Gutenberg EBook Layla Benitex-James 137 ‘That UHI translation workshop inspized a move to Spain in 2014, and while I really liked the poets I was working on, I also began want- ing to find Black Spanish writers. I attended several festivals such as Afroconciencia in Madrid, and learned about an organization called Kevanzaa, a Black student union afiliated with Madrid's Complutense University where I had studied for a semester in 2009. In one Kwanzaa meeting, we went around in a circle to introduce ourselves and share experiences of the frst time we felt racialized, We were in a huge, brick art space on the southside of Madrid called the Matadero, which had once been a slaughterhouse. A woman talked about being a bit of a nerd and being called a coconut by her clissmates. In Texas, cvonut was used more for people from South or Central American countries and made me remember reading comments from Native American ‘and Asian American writers who talked about apple, banana, and Tuinkie being ssed in this way, literal centring of whiteness. Last year, I read Candice Carty-Williams’ wonderful novel Queenie, in which the main chatac~ 's stepfather calls her a Bounty:""White on the inside... Brown on the outside?”® I had never heard that particular candy used like Oreo and it has inspired me to learn more about these kinds of phrases in a UK context, never mind all the other Englishes that exis. Jn October 2020, I participated in a panel called Softening the Blow: Translating Racialized Language as part of the American Literary Trans- lators Association’s conference. I talked about translating the word “negra” ("Black’’ or “Black girl”), used as an insult in the nonfiction book Ser mujer negra en Espafa by Spanish writer Desitée Bela-Lobedie. ‘The title can be translated as To Be a Black Woman in Spain ot Being a Black Woman in Spain, and the book traces Bela-Lobedde's experiences, growing up in the 80s and 90s, then into her adulthood and having her own children. One chapter, “iNegral” (Black!), explores the first time she remembers “negra” being used as an insult against her. In the voice of her childhood, she wonders what could be so bad about being Black that other children would think to use it as an insult. Of course, Black can also be used as an insult in English, and in elementary school I de initely heard people say,“stop acting so Black” or “oooh, that’s so Black.” Cary Willams, Candies. Quan Scoue Pres, 2019, page 251 ISBN 9781-5011-9605-4 (took)198 Violent Phenomena I found deep kinship in reading the book, especially in the opening pages when she says,"‘For the colour of my skin I've been Cuban, Do- sinican, Brazilian...” as I have Countless memories of people trying to guess “what Iam,” even going so far as to shout out nationalities while I'm walking in the street. Finding myself in Ser mujer negra en Espafa was comforting, making sme fee] less alone. Rather than being 2 translator and ferrying works into English for imagined readers, more and more I found myself secking out projects that I needed to read myself. There is both compas- sion and humour running through Bela-Lobedde'’s book which feels tied to optimism and hope for a better fiture through difficult dia- logues. It also made me thiak fondly of poet and translator Gregory Pardlo’ essay in The Art of Empathy, “Choosing a Twin,” which explores how we might build an affinity within the texts we translate, The idea of finding a kind of twin or long-lost sister seemed particularly fitting for this project. I had a similar feeling of kinship with Madrid native Lucia Asué Mbomio Rubio's short story collection, Las que se atrevieron, and er first novel, Hija del camino, which I'm currently working on, In these works, she mieditates specifically on her mixed-race identity which closely parallels my own, having a white mother and Black father. ‘Watching 2 TED talk-she gave in 2018 (iBxisten las razas? | Lucta- Asué Mbomio Rubio | TEDxManzanares), I was again struck by how fascinating I find food-based racial slurs in particular, While it roots me in a particularly painful time in my own childhood, Proust's madeleine also kept appearing to me as I wondered how best to translate these hyper-specific points of reference. Racial slurs and racialised language ase often very localised vocabulary, even more so when we deal with food. I began to think about my use of “target” and “source” languages swith Englishes, plural, in mind At the beginning of Mbomio Rubio's talk, she walks through the audience, passing out Conguitos candies, which are more or less ‘M&M’ with a history of deeply racistimagery that the company is still nowhere neat ready to rethink. In an article, “Spain's Conguitos candy Layla Beniter-James 139 pushed to rebrand ‘racist’ imagery” (still using scaze quotes to talk about racist imagery, El Pals July 2nd, 2020), Mbomio Rubio is quoted: “The problem with the adorable Conguitos figure is that it is only adorable for people who ate not black. There was a ‘They calied me Conguito in school too’ Facebook group once and it wasn't exactly funny”"In fact, cone of the fist images that appears in an image search for Conguitos is from a 2019 story about 2 footballer, Bernardo Silva, being fined roughly 58,000 Euros and having to sit out one game after tweeting 2 racist image comparing his teammate, Benjamin Mendy, with the racist Conguitos cartoon, which is still used on all its packaging and mar- keting (El Pals November 14th, 2019). Bela-Lobedde also notes these candies in her discussions of various blackface practices still prevalent in Spain, and we get this jingle, which T've encountered in other Spanish texts, which is mockingly sung at Black children: ep agelagit del Aicerpi ue vend cial ci del Colac ‘Pr that Title Bac bo from tropical Affica ‘who sings while he is working the song of Colacaa® eg. 33) “While both Colacao and Conguitos have made small steps towards no longer actively using images of tribal people in their advertising cartoons, after sustained and intense pressure from various activist groups, the effect of their imagery is felt in many works I've en- countered, On another panel focusing on the writing of Black play- ‘weights in Spain in February 2021, I interviewed Silvia Albert Sopale and spoke about her short play No es pals para negras, which I saw live in Madrid in 2016. I was excited to learn there was already an English version published with KRK Ediciones, but was struck by the force swith which the food-based racial slurs had been rendered in Englis Fle Lotadde, Dee. Sr mae apn ov Bip Plan B Penguin Random House Grapo Bait- orl 2018, age 21. ISBN: 978:84-£7001-65-0, 5 le belde Dee. 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