Victoria Baena is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at Yale University. Her work focuses on the novel between realism and modernism in Europe and Latin America.
Victoria Baena
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Writing on Public Books
Our Migrant World
Within the rhetorical toolbox of contemporary political discourse, the language used to characterize international migration, refugee crises, and border crossings might fairly be called impoverished. “Waves” of refugees are “flooding” the West, which is “overwhelmed” by the “swamp” of new arrivals; or, to swap a logic of inundation for one of infestation, migrants “swarm” their […]
Loss in Translation
Walter Benjamin’s well-known essay “The Task of the Translator” claims that “translation is a form,” an artistic act in its own right. For Benjamin, both text and translation yearn toward a mystical “pure language,” a kind of aesthetic state that transcends mere communication. This pure language comprises a rich constellation of texts and textual possibilities, […]
