© Swansea University 2009 DOI 10.1179/026399009X12523296128795 romance studies, Vol. 27 No. 4, November, 2009, 246–258 The Creative Voice of the Translator of Latin American Literature Jeremy Munday University of Leeds, UK What do we mean by the creative ‘voice’ in translation, and how does it relate to forms of creativity in the source? How do creative writers, transla- tors, and authors view this process? This article seeks to explore some of the issues related to artistic creativity in translation using examples drawn from the translation into English of twentieth-century Latin American literature, which has been the focus of interest of a host of renowned trans- lators, including Harriet de Onís, Gregory Rabassa, Helen Lane, Margaret Sayers Peden, Suzanne Jill Levine, Norman Thomas di Giovanni, and Edith Grossman. The article employs a range of theoretical concepts from creativity theory, applied linguistics, and sociolinguistics to investigate this phenomenon. It also discusses new forms of creativity engendered by hybrid Spanish-English texts that pose new questions for translators and blur any rigid divide between source and target texts. keywords Translation, Creativity, Voice, Latin American literature, Hybridity From within translation studies, recent interest in the link between translation and creative writing has begun to address the question of how the processes resemble each other, at the same time seeking to rectify a long-standing downgrading of translation as a secondary, minor, creative activity. Of these publications, Perteghella and Loffredo’s edited volume Translation and Creativity: Perspectives on Creative Writing and Translation Studies, 1 which we shall discuss below, is perhaps the most widely known but by no means the only contribution. ‘Creativity’ is described in terms of adding something ‘more or less new’ in the process of translation, 2 as bringing ‘novelty’ (or originality), 3 or as ‘re-creation’ and ‘the capacity to make, do or become something fresh and valuable with respect to others as well as ourselves’. 4 What exactly becomes ‘new’ or ‘fresh’ in translation will be the central preoccupation of this article, to be illustrated specifically by examples from the translation of modern Latin American literature, a rich site for different forms of creativity and for the development of the individual translator ‘voice’. Nevertheless, my first concern is that the broadening of translation studies towards the creative does not find its correspondence in the theory and pedagogy of creative