THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA - Mitchell F. Chan

[dwbarnes33]

I like it, Mitch. I'm curious if the sculpture is writing out the original Spanish or an English translation. We can't read it, I know. So it probably doesn't matter.

[mitchellfchan]

@dwbarnes33 That's an excellent question! It's writing the John Ormsby translation. That's actually an important part of the piece that I thought about a lot. As you'll recall, in the book Cervantes claims that he is not himself the author of the work, but rather that most of it he found in an old book market and had translated from the original Arabic.

[mitchellfchan]

@dwbarnes33 It's not true, of course, but it's the most important of many instances in the book where Cervantes is trying to make us question the reliability of translations. Not just translations across languages, but even the translation of an idea to text. So in that spirit, I thought it would be best if my project were a "translation" of a translation of what is supposed to be itself a translation.