The Worlds of Langston Hughes

The Worlds of Langston Hughes The Worlds of Langston Hughes Modernism and Translation in the Americas VERA M. KUTZINSKI CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca & London Copyright © 2012 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2012 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kutzinski, Vera M., 1956– The worlds of Langston Hughes : modernism and translation in the Americas / Vera M. Kutzinski. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5115-7 (cloth : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-8014-7826-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Hughes, Langston, 1902–1967—Translations—History and criticism. 2. Hughes, Langston, 1902–1967—Appreciation. 3. Modernism (Literature)—America. I. Title. PS3515.U274Z6675 2013 811'.52—dc23 2012009952 Lines from “Kids in the Park,” “Cross,” “I, Too,” “Our Land,” “Florida Road Workers,” “Militant,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Laughers,” “Ma Man,” “Desire,” “Always the Same,” “Letter to the Academy,” “A New Song,” “Birth,” “Caribbean Sunset,” “Hey!,” “Afraid,” “Final Curve,” “Poet to Patron,” “Ballads of Lenin," “Lenin,” “Union,” “History,” “Cubes,” “Scottsboro,” “One More S in the U.S.A.,” and “Let America Be America Again” from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Electronic rights worldwide and UK/Commonwealth, S. African and Irish print on paper rights for these poems and for materials from Langston Hughes’s autobiographies are granted by Harold Ober Associates Inc. Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable- based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my extended family, acá y allá contents Acknowledgments ix Chronology of Travels, Translations, and Other Key Publications xi Abbreviations xvi Introduction: In Others’ Words: Translation and Survival 1 1 Nomad Heart: Heterolingual Autobiography 15 2 Southern Exposures: Hughes in Spanish 56 3 Buenos Aires Blues: Modernism in the Creole City 86 4 Havana Vernaculars: The Cuba Libre Project 132 5 Back in the USSA: Joe McCarthy’s Mistranslations 184 Afterword: America/América/Americas 221 Appendix 241 Notes 257 Bibliography 311 Index 339 vii acknowledgments This book has been a long time in the making, and the debts of gratitude I have incurred along the way are plentiful indeed. Even if I could recall them all accurately, it would be impossible to do them justice in writing. I do, however, want to single out those friends and colleagues who were generous enough to comment on my many drafts: Elizabeth Barnett, Hu- bert Cook, Paula Covington, Roberto González Echevarría, Detlev Eggers, Kathleen de Guzmán, Amanda Hagood, Justin Haynes, Robert Kelz, John Morell, Chris Pexa, Kathrin Seidl-Gómez, Daniel Spoth, Aubrey Porter- field, José María Rodríguez García, and Lacey Saborido. For invaluable help with locating translations of Hughes’s poetry, I want to thank Paula Covington, Curator of the Latin American Studies Collection at Vander- bilt, Jim Toplon, Director of Interlibrary Loan Services at Vanderbilt, and Laurie N. Taylor, Digital Humanities Librarian at the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. Very special thanks go to Giorleny Altami- rano Rayo, mi hermanita, and to the ever-faithful EE-gor. Without their mostly gentle but insistent prodding this book would likely never have been completed. Ange Romeo-Hall and Jamie Fuller did a splendid job copyediting my manuscript, and I am grateful to them for saving me from embarrassing infelicities. I thank Kitty Liu for making sure that everything kept moving along apace. Last but by no means least, my heartfelt gratitude goes to Peter Potter for his thoughtful feedback, his choice of engaged and helpful readers, and his unwavering support for this project over the past few years. Earlier versions of chapters 2 and 4 were published as “ ‘Yo también soy América’: Langston Hughes Translated,” in American Literary History 18, no. 3 (2006): 550–78, and as “Fearful Asymmetries: Langston Hughes, Nicolás Guillén and Cuba Libre” in Diacritics 34, nos. 1–2 (2004): 1–29. I thank Random House for the permission to reprint lines from Hughes’s poems and Harold Ober Associates Inc. for granting the electronic rights to excerpts from Hughes’s poetry and prose. The materials from the Langston Hughes Papers, part of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, are also quoted with the permission of the Estate of Langston Hughes. Passages from the Alfred A. Knopf correspondence at Beinecke Library are reprinted with the permission of Random House Inc., and citations from the poems ix X Acknowledgments of Nicolás Guillén are reproduced with the permission of the Fundación Nicolás Guillén. Finally, I wish to thank both Yale University and Vanderbilt for giving me the time I needed to complete this book, and the Martha Rivers Ingram Chair for providing funding for research materials, research assistance, and permissions fees. Vera M. Kutzinski Nashville, February 2012 chronology of travels, translations, and other key publications 1902 James Langston Hughes born in Joplin, Missouri (February 1). 1903 Moves to his grandmother’s home in Lawrence, Kansas. Parents separate, and James Nathaniel Hughes emigrates to Mexico. 1908–9 Starts school in Topeka, Kansas, where he lives with his mother, Carrie Mercer Langston Hughes, and then is returned to his grandmother’s in Lawrence. 1915 Stays with the Reeds in Lawrence after his grandmother’s death, then joins his mother and her second husband in Lincoln, Illinois. 1916 The family moves first to Cleveland, Ohio, where Langston begins high school, then to Chicago. Langston remains in Cleveland. 1919 Spends the summer with his father in Toluca, Mexico. 1920 After graduating from Central High in Cleveland, Langston returns to Toluca to live with his father. Spends weekends in Mexico City. Teaches at Luis Tovar’s business institute near the end of his year-long stay. Sails from Veracruz back to New York City. 1921–22 “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” appears in The Crisis. Enrolls at Columbia University, only to withdraw after a term. Breaks with his father as a result. Moves to Harlem and works odd jobs. 1923–25 Signs on to the Africa-bound freighter West Hesseltine in June 1923. Visits Accra, the Azores, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Lagos, the Belgian Congo, Guinea-Bissau, French Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Angola. Sails to Europe on another freighter, the McKeesport, in December and again in February 1924. Visits xi xii Chronology Rotterdam and stays in Paris until August, traveling to northern Italy, finally returning to the USA via Genoa on the West Cawthon. Arrives back in Manhattan in early November 1924. 1925 “The Weary Blues” wins Opportunity’s poetry contest. Lives in Washington, D.C. 1926 Publishes The Weary Blues and “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Enrolls at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. 1927 Publishes Fine Clothes to the Jew. Meets Charlotte Mason Osgood, who becomes his patron. Travels through the South of the USA with Zora Neale Hurston. First brief visit to Havana. 1928 Fernández de Castro publishes his first Hughes translation in Social. 1929 Graduates from Lincoln University. 1930 Publishes Not Without Laughter. Second visit to Havana (February–March). Breaks with his patron. Translations of Hughes’s poems appear in Contemporáneos (Mexico City), Sur (Buenos Aires), Revista de La Habana, and El Diario de la Marina (Havana). Nicolás Guillén also publishes his interview with Hughes in El Diario de la Marina. 1931 Together with Zell Ingram, embarks on a trip to the Caribbean (April–May). Stops over in Havana, Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitïen, and Santiago de Cuba. Returns to Miami in July. Rafael Lozano publishes a selection of Hughes’s poems in Crísol. Poetry reading tour of the South of the USA. Visits Scottsboro Boys in jail. 1932–33 Publishes Scottsboro, Limited and The Dream Keeper. Travels to Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco. Leaves for Moscow in June 1932 and spends fourteen months in the Soviet Union. Visits Tashkent, Samarkand, Bokhara, Ashgabat, Merv (Turkmenistan), and Permetyab (central Asia). Returns to Moscow in January 1933. Departs for Vladivostok in June, then returns to the San Francisco via Kyoto, Tokyo, and Shanghai. Takes up residence in Carmel in August. 1934–35 Publishes The Ways of White Folks. Labor unrest in California. Travels to Mexico on the occasion of his father’s death and stays for several months in Mexico City. Returns to the USA Chronology xiii and joins his mother in Oberlin, Ohio. Visits New York. His play Mulatto opens on Broadway. 1936 Wins a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ildefonso Pereda Valdés publishes Antología de la poesía negra americana in Santiago de Chile. 1937 Spends summer in Paris for the League of American Writers. In August travels to Valencia, then on to Madrid, as a war reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American. Leaves Madrid for Barcelona in mid-November. Returns to the USA via Paris at the end of the year. 1938 Publishes A New Song. Rafael Alberti publishes his Hughes translation in El Mono Azul. First visit to UK in September 1938.

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