“La orilla”: The translation of “The Shallows”, a short story

by Katherine J. Orr1

Written by Lucía Volpe (105404/2) as part of the course of Teoría y Práctica de

la Traducción Literaria en Inglés II held in the year 2019 by Dr. Miguel
Montezanti, Prof. /Trad. Fabiana Datko and Trad. Soledad Maradei.
Revised by Ana Hirschmann.
Submitted on October 22nd.

1
Orr, K.J. (2016). The Shallows. In The Light Box. London: Daunt Books.
[This page was intentionally left blank]
 The shallows

1. ‘Hello. I’m Christopher,’ she heard, and when she raised her head and opened her eyes
there he was, right in front of her – his skinny ankles no more than a couple of inches
from her face.

2. This was how it tended to happen. This was how the scenario played itself out.

3. She looked up. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What’s up, Christopher?’

4. ‘Do you want to play?’ He presented the question – rather flat, a little wan – like a dish
he had prepared that had turned out bland, and beige, and unappealing, so he wasn’t necessarily
expecting a positive response. She looked up, squinting, to the rest of him, and saw his body
plastered with the sun cream his mother had applied, and the white cloth sun hat, the kind that
babies wear with great floppy rims, and beneath it his pale face, the nose obliterated by factor
50. His eyes, large and blue and long-lashed, were glittering beneath the indignities that had
been piled upon him, and his thin red lips were burning furiously.

5. She hauled her body to its feet.

6. ‘Lead on, Christopher.’

7. He gave her the loveliest smile, and then led the way towards the rock pools and the
cliffs.

8. But of course this was not how it had happened, not how it had played itself out.

9. Later she would learn about alternatives, but that summer, that first time, Frankie had
shuttled up and down the beach with pads, back and forth between the encampment her family
had made close to the water, and the interminable queue for the loos. Accompanying her all
the while was an ache deep in her pelvis, which made her grateful for the kick of heat coming
from the sand beneath her feet.

10. That queue, over and over – bodies shuffling inch by slow inch, limbs lazy in the sun,
arms swatting listlessly at flies, like the tails of cows.

11. The stink of urine. The wet sand gritty and slippery against the concrete underfoot. Then
the toilet more like a shower; the white porcelain stained and chipped with an uninviting
platform for each foot, and filthy overflow – including her own – from the bin. Squatting there,
through the wide gap underneath the stall door, Frank would inspect the flip-flopped feet that
were lined up and waiting.
 La orilla

1. «Hola, soy Christopher» oyó, y cuando levantó la cabeza y abrió los ojos ahí estaba él,
justo frente a ella, con los tobillos delgados a no más de un par de centímetros de su rostro.

2. Así era como solía ocurrir. Así era como la escena se desarrollaba.

3. Ella levantó la mirada y dijo:

4. —Hola. ¿Qué sucede, Christopher?

5. —¿Quieres jugar? —Presentó la pregunta, algo monótona y un poco sosa, como si fuera
un plato que había preparado y que le había salido insípido y beige y poco atractivo, por lo que
no necesariamente estaba esperando una respuesta positiva. Entrecerrando los ojos, ella levantó
la mirada hacia el resto de él y vio el cuerpo cubierto del protector solar que le había aplicado
la madre y el gorro para el sol de tela blanca, como los que usan los bebés, de ala ancha y
blanda, y debajo un rostro pálido, la nariz casi imperceptible detrás del factor 50. Los ojos,
grandes y azules y con pestañas largas, brillaban debajo de las indignidades que habían apilado
sobre él y los finos labios rojos ardían con furia.

6. Ella se puso de pie con esfuerzo.

7. —Tú guías, Christopher.

8. Él le ofreció su sonrisa más encantadora y luego marcó el camino hacia las pozas de
marea y los acantilados.

9. Pero por supuesto que no fue así como ocurrió, no fue así como se desarrolló.

10. Más adelante descubriría alternativas, pero ese verano, esa primera vez, Frankie había
ido y venido de acá para allá por la playa con toallas sanitarias, de un lado para otro entre el
campamento que su familia había montado cerca del agua y la fila interminable para los baños.
Todo el tiempo la acompañaba un dolor en lo profundo de la pelvis, que la hacía sentir
agradecida por el calor que provenía de la arena bajo sus pies.

11. Esa fila, una y otra vez: cuerpos que arrastraban lento cada paso, extremidades
perezosas al sol, brazos que espantaban sin fuerza a las moscas, como las colas de las vacas.

12. El tufo a orina. La arena mojada, granulosa y resbaladiza en el asfalto bajo los pies. El
baño, más bien una ducha; la porcelana blanca manchada y descascarada con una plataforma
poco atractiva para cada pie; y el cubo de basura rebosante de porquerías, incluidas las suyas.
Ahí, en cuclillas, a través del amplio hueco debajo de la puerta del cubículo, Frank solía
inspeccionar los pies en sandalias que esperaban en la fila.
12. She had felt stranded wherever she went: stranded in the water, knowing each time she
swam there was a risk she would humiliate herself on her way out; stranded and oddly solitary
as she made the quick change, under cover of her towel, into the relative safety of padded
knickers and shorts; stranded as she marched up the beach to the queue, past those who were
flat out and happy and careless, when she was not.

13. Standing in the shallows, the small waves washing over her feet, she had looked back
towards the mound of towels and bags and picnic things surrounding her parents, who lay
reading, or sleeping, or watching as her brothers dug a moat around their castle in the sand.

14. She had felt hot and stupid in her clothes.

15. ‘Frankie, take off your shirt,’ her mother had teased. But she couldn’t.

16. She hated the way her brothers shook her off – the look of absence in their eyes when
they rested on her. She hated that.

17. Instead of running around as she would usually do, or diving off rocks, Frank spent time
sitting and watching instead. First she would look for her brothers, and then she would let her
gaze trail right along the beach, where perfect surf was coasting in, where bodies hurled
themselves about, ecstatic.

18. She watched as down the beach a woman and her son arrived and started setting up
camp. The woman – sallow-looking – fussed over the boy. She plastered him with cream; it
didn’t look like fun. The boy picked his way towards the water, and stood gazing out, his feet
barely wet. He did a little dance there, at the water’s edge, and then turned to look for his
mother.

19. Frank studied her own parents – her mother on her belly, deep in her book, her father,
cross-legged, picking at a hangnail on his toe. There were others she remembered like pieces
on a chess board.

20. She remembered a man – white-haired, slim, and wearing spectacles, wire-rimmed –
who held the hand of a girl playing in the sea. Years later she could picture him, carried an
image of him in her mind, as if it mattered.

21. She remembered another younger man on her route up the beach, lying in a pair of
yellow Speedos so tight she had to force herself to look away: his skin slick, his thighs
prominent, his body, even at rest, in a state of readiness – tense and compact.
13. Se había sentido varada donde sea que fuera: varada en el agua, sabiendo que al nadar
corría el riesgo de humillarse al salir; varada y curiosamente aislada al realizar el cambio
rápido, al amparo de su toalla, hacia la relativa seguridad de las toallas sanitarias bajo las bragas
y los shorts; varada al subir por la playa hacia la fila, pasando a aquellos que estaban echados
y felices y despreocupados, a diferencia de ella.

14. Parada en la orilla, mientras las pequeñas olas le mojaban los pies, había mirado para
atrás hacia la pila de toallas y bolsas y artículos de pícnic que había alrededor de sus padres,
quienes estaban recostados leyendo o durmiendo o mirando a sus hermanos cavar una fosa en
la arena en torno a su castillo.

15. Se había sentido acalorada y estúpida con la ropa puesta.

16. —Frankie, quítate la remera —había dicho su madre, molestándola. Pero ella no pudo.

17. Odiaba la manera en que sus hermanos se la quitaban de encima, la mirada ausente en
aquellos ojos cuando se detenían en ella. Odiaba eso.

18. En lugar de correr por ahí como solía hacer, o tirarse al agua desde las rocas, Frank
pasaba el tiempo sentada, mirando. Primero, buscaba a sus hermanos con la mirada, la que
luego dejaría vagar por la playa, donde se deslizaba un oleaje perfecto, donde había cuerpos
moviéndose de un lado para otro, eufóricos.

19. Observaba como, playa abajo, una mujer y su hijo llegaban y empezaban a instalarse.
La mujer, de apariencia cetrina, se hacía mucho problema por el niño. Lo cubrió de crema; no
parecía divertido. El niño se abrió camino hacia el agua y permaneció allí, mirando, con los
pies apenas mojados. Hizo una pequeña danza en la orilla del agua y luego se volteó para buscar
a su madre.

20. Frank analizó a sus propios padres: su madre, apoyada sobre su barriga, profundamente
concentrada en su libro; su padre, cruzado de piernas, quitándose un padrastro del pie. Había
otros a quienes recordaba como piezas en un tablero de ajedrez.

21. Recordaba a un hombre —delgado, canoso, que usaba anteojos con marcos de
alambre— que estaba tomado de la mano de una niña que jugaba en el mar. Años después
podía imaginarlo, llevaba una imagen de él en su mente, como si importara.

22. Recordaba a otro hombre más joven que veía en su recorrido playa arriba, recostado y
con un slip amarillo tan ajustado que ella tenía que obligarse a mirar para otro lado: la piel
tersa; los muslos prominentes; el cuerpo, aun en reposo, en estado de alerta, tenso y compacto.
22. She remembered the two teenage girls who were closer to the spot her family had
claimed, halfway between the water and the ridge of seaweed marking high tide, far from the
fuss at the top of the beach – the back and forth, the queues, the booths for food. They too had
chosen the sand that was firm, that was good for digging and striated with shells – the broken
fragments smoothed by the sea, the larger clams and cuttlefish prized by Frank’s brothers –
though mostly all they did was lie there talking about nights out, past and future.

23. She could remember too, beside the rocks to the left of the girls, close to the cliffs, the
woman dressed only in bikini bottoms squatting in the sand, skin scorched to mahogany and
wizened with age, breasts flat against her chest.

24. Frank had watched her father playing chess often. The board in their living room alcove
was equipped with handsome resin figurines. They were the Lewis Chessmen: the king
stunned; his sullen, cogitative queen with one hand resting on her cheek and looking – Frank’s
mother said – as if she’d had one bitch of a week; the knight with a cloak draped in perfect
folds over his steed; the steed the most contented of the lot, Frank always thought, with a very
satisfying, perfectly straight fringe.

25. Her father had tried to teach her. She would sit in the armchair across from him, planted
sideways and almost inverted with the soles of her feet pressed flat against the wall. He told
her more than once that she had things the wrong way round: she insisted each time on retracing
her steps to get her bearings, always making a mental journey back to the start. ‘Look ahead!’
he would urge. But back she would go, over and over, to the beginning, where everything was
clear, and where the figurines were neatly lined up in a row.

26. That day, on the beach, she had felt something in motion, the main players having
already made moves. She could find no clear beginning, and yet the powerful feeling remained,
long afterwards – if only she could.

27. The older woman had seemed familiar. Frank felt she had seen her before; found herself
pondering the face scored with lines, the limbs thin and loose-skinned.

28. ‘Frank,’ her mother had said. ‘You’re staring.’

29. She couldn’t place her, couldn’t think where it had been. ‘I’m not.’

30. She fell back on her towel, and then flipped herself over so her face was pressed hard
into the damp, salt-smelling cloth. Behind her eyelids she saw explosions – fireworks in orange
and blue spinning trails through the dark.
23. Recordaba a dos adolescentes que estaban más cerca del espacio que su familia había
ocupado, a mitad de camino entre el agua y la línea de algas que marcaba la marea alta, lejos
del alboroto playa arriba: las idas y venidas, las filas, los puestos de comida. Ellas también
habían escogido la arena que estaba firme, que era buena para cavar y estaba estriada con
conchas —los fragmentos rotos pulidos por el mar y las jibias y almejas más grandes, preciadas
por los hermanos de Frank— aunque lo que hacían era, más que nada, estar allí tiradas hablando
sobre salidas nocturnas, pasadas y futuras.

24. También podía recordar, al lado de las rocas a la izquierda de las chicas, cerca de los
acantilados, a la mujer que sólo vestía la parte de abajo del bikini, agachada en la arena; la piel
quemada color caoba y marchita por la edad, los pechos planos en su torso.

25. Con frecuencia, Frank había observado a su padre jugar al ajedrez. El tablero que se
hallaba en la estantería de la sala estaba equipado con piezas de resina. Eran las piezas de
ajedrez de Lewis: el rey aturdido; su reina, silenciosa, meditativa, con una mano sobre la
mejilla, se veía —decía su madre— como si hubiera tenido una semana de mierda; el caballero
con una capa de drapeado perfecto que caía sobre su corcel; el corcel, el más contento del grupo
—pensaba siempre Frank— con un flequillo perfectamente recto, muy satisfactorio.

26. Su padre había intentado enseñarle. Ella solía sentarse en el sillón frente a él, se
colocaba de costado y casi dada vuelta con las plantas de los pies presionadas contra la pared.
Él le decía más de una vez que había entendido todo al revés: cada vez, ella insistía en volver
sobre sus pasos para encontrar su rumbo, siempre haciendo un viaje mental de vuelta al
comienzo. «¡Mira hacia adelante!» insistía él. Pero ella volvía, una y otra vez, al comienzo,
donde todo estaba claro y las piezas estaban prolijamente alineadas en fila.

27. Ese día, en la playa, había sentido que algo se movía, cuando los jugadores principales
ya habían movido sus piezas. No podía encontrar un comienzo claro y aún permanecía aquella
poderosa sensación un largo tiempo después; si tan solo pudiera.

28. La mujer mayor le había resultado familiar. Frank sentía que la había visto antes; se
encontró a sí misma reflexionando sobre el rostro marcado por las arrugas, las extremidades
flacas y con la piel floja.

29. —Frank —le había dicho su madre—. Estás mirando mucho.

30. No podía ubicarla, no podía pensar dónde había sido.

31. —No estoy mirando.

32. Se echó hacia atrás sobre su toalla y luego se volteó para que su rostro quedara bien
apretado contra la tela húmeda y con olor a sal. Detrás de los párpados veía explosiones, las
estelas naranjas y azules de los fuegos artificiales girando en la oscuridad.
31. Close by, a girl had been going on to a friend. It was impossible not to hear every word;
as she warmed to her theme her voice became loud and hard – relentless. The theme was vomit.
Behind her closed lids Frank had visions of the girl painting a car, a hallway, and then a kitchen,
with great sticky lumps of the stuff.

32. ‘Ice cream anyone?’ Frank’s father had said.

33. For Frank, the voice had conjured someone stocky and ugly, so when she opened her
eyes and located the girls it seemed impossible that the words belonged to them – both slim
and attractive, one a redhead, the other with a dark, glossy mane. They had been older than
Frank by only a few years, but seemed so sure of themselves. She could remember their legs
flicking up and down as they lay on their towels, and the way they changed position for an
even tan, like old hands, and the ritual they made of comparing white marks under bikini straps.

34. Suddenly there was the small boy, in front of the girls. What could have possessed him?
She couldn’t hear what he said, but they shrieked with laughter.

35. He stood there a moment, looking at them, before moving off. A few feet away he
stopped and seemed to be taking stock. He started making his way towards her.

36. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘No. No. No. No. No.’

37. She fell forward on her towel, flat out, pretending to sleep.

38. ‘Hello,’ a voice said. ‘I’m Christopher.’

39. ‘Hello Christopher,’ she heard her father say, agreeably. ‘What can we do for you?’

40. ‘I’ve come to play.’

41. ‘Frank!’ her father called out, as if she were some distance away, or in her room at the
top of the stairs.

42. ‘No.’

43. ‘Frankie!’

44. She could sense him standing there, right at the edge of her towel. Slowly, she propped
herself up on one elbow, and shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand.

45. His toes were curled tight, all together, his pale feet smeared with sunscreen, and clotted
with sand. He stood there bravely, small shoulders back. It was as if, for that moment, his whole
body were on pause, as if he were holding his breath.

46. Frank tried hard to imagine hauling herself up but everything in her felt heavy; a great
weight was bearing down. It was impossible.
33. Cerca, había una joven que no paraba de hablarle a su amiga. Era imposible no oír cada
palabra; a medida que se entusiasmaba con el tema, su voz se hacía fuerte y firme, tenaz. El
tema era el vómito. Detrás de los párpados cerrados, Frank veía a la joven pintando un auto,
un pasillo y después una cocina, con grandes grumos pegajosos de la cosa.

34. —¿Alguien quiere helado? —había dicho el padre de Frank.

35. Para Frank, la voz había evocado a alguien achaparrado y feo así que, cuando abrió los
ojos y localizó a las chicas, parecía imposible que las palabras provinieran de ellas, ambas
delgadas y atractivas: una pelirroja, la otra con una melena oscura y brillante. Debían de ser
mayores que Frank por apenas unos años, pero parecían tan seguras de sí mismas. Podía
recordar sus piernas moviéndose de arriba a abajo mientras estaban recostadas en sus toallas y
la manera en que cambiaban de posición para un bronceado parejo, como expertas, y el ritual
de comparar las marcas blancas bajo las tiras del bikini.

36. De repente allí estaba el pequeño, frente a las chicas. ¿Qué lo habría impulsado? No
podía oír lo que les decía, pero ellas chillaban de la risa.

37. Permaneció parado allí un momento, mirándolas, antes de retirarse. A unos metros frenó
y parecía que estaba analizando la situación. Empezó a dirigirse hacia ella.

38. —No —suspiró—. No. No. No. No. No.

39. Se echó hacia adelante en su toalla y fingió estar dormida.

40. —Hola —dijo una voz—. Soy Christopher.

41. —Hola, Christopher —oyó a su padre decir plácidamente—. ¿En qué podemos
ayudarte?

42. —Vine a jugar.

43. —¡Frank! —llamó su padre, como si ella estuviera a cierta distancia, o en su habitación
en el piso de arriba.

44. —No.

45. —¡Frankie!

46. Podía sentir su presencia, parado ahí, justo al borde de la toalla. Lentamente, se
incorporó apoyándose en un codo y protegió sus ojos del sol con la mano.

47. Él tenía los dedos de los pies enroscados, todos juntos, y los pies pálidos embadurnados
con protector solar y grumos de arena. Permaneció parado ahí, con valentía, con los pequeños
hombros hacia atrás. Por ese instante, era como si todo su cuerpo estuviera en pausa, como si
estuviera conteniendo la respiración.

48. Frank se esforzó por imaginarse levantándose con esfuerzo, pero todo en ella se sentía
pesado; un gran peso le hacía presión. Era imposible.
47. ‘I’m sorry Christopher,’ she said.

48. He squinted through his disappointment, blinked in the sun, and walked away.

49. According to her mother she would, in time, feel nostalgic for those days – the way her
body flushed itself out like clockwork, with such force, with those torrents of blood. But that
day she groaned with hot rage and thrashed her legs about in the sand.

50. ‘It hurts,’ she said, into her towel, kicking her feet, trying to shake off the heavy ache
creeping down into her thighs. ‘I have to go again,’ she said, sitting up and rifling, furious, in
her bag.

51. ‘Oh Frank.’ This was her mother. ‘Are you sure? You’ve only just been.’

52. ‘You’re exhausting to watch,’ her father said. ‘Just leave it be.’

53. ‘How can she leave it be?’

54. ‘If you were in Nepal they would kick you out of the house.’

55. Frank glared at her father.

56. ‘You’re a pollutant.’

57. ‘Thom. For God’s sake,’ her mother said.

58. He shrugged. He was enjoying himself. ‘They wouldn’t let you prepare food, either.’

59. ‘Fine.’ Frank threw the wad of pads she had ready in her hand on to her towel, not
bothering to hide them away. ‘Fetch your own ice cream.’

60. It was good to get away from the sweltering sand and on to the rocks where there was
a breeze. In the shadow of the cliffs it was cool underfoot.

61. She found a place to stand on a large, smooth rock with a perfect indentation for her
feet. She slotted herself in and looked back towards the beach, which was warped now by the
hazy heat. Mirages, slippery like mercury, appeared and disappeared, rolling their silver along
folds in the sand that could not possibly be there. It all looked like a picture on paper that
someone had taken and crumpled in their fist and then released, producing odd ridges and
troughs, a relief changing shape as the paper relaxed, a slow metamorphosis startled here and
there by odd spasms – the sudden surge of a kite, the spume of a cresting wave, the panicked
flap of a pyjama-striped windbreak.
49. —Lo siento, Christopher —dijo.

50. Decepcionado, entrecerró los ojos, parpadeó al sol y se fue caminando.

51. Según su madre, con el tiempo, sentiría nostalgia por aquellos días: la forma en que su
cuerpo drenaba, como un relojito, con tanta fuerza, torrentes de sangre. Sin embargo, aquel día
gruñía con una furia ardiente y sacudía las piernas en la arena.

52. —Duele —dijo, dentro de su toalla, dando patadas al aire, intentando librarse del
intenso dolor que se escabullía hacia sus muslos. Se incorporó y, hurgando furiosa en su
mochila, dijo—: Tengo que ir de nuevo.

53. —Ay, Frank. —Esta era su madre—. ¿Estás segura? Apenas acabas de ir.

54. —Uno se agota con solo verte —dijo su padre—. Olvídate y listo.

55. —¿Cómo podría olvidarse?

56. —Si estuvieras en Nepal te echarían de la casa.

57. Frank lo fulminó con la mirada.

58. —Eres una contaminadora.

59. —Thom. Por el amor de Dios —dijo su madre.

60. Él se encogió de hombros. Lo estaba disfrutando.

61. —Tampoco te dejarían preparar comida.

62. —Está bien. —Frank arrojó sobre la toalla el montón de toallas sanitarias que tenía
preparadas en la mano, sin molestarse en ocultarlas—. Ve a buscarte tu propio helado.

63. Era bueno alejarse de la arena sofocante y acercarse a las rocas, donde había una brisa.
A la sombra de los acantilados, el suelo estaba fresco.

64. Encontró un lugar para quedarse en una roca grande y lisa, con una hendidura perfecta
para sus pies. Se acomodó ahí y miró hacia atrás, hacia la playa que ahora se deformaba por el
calor calinoso. Espejismos, escurridizos como el mercurio, aparecían y desaparecían, hacían
serpentear su plata por pliegues de arena que era imposible que estuvieran allí. Todo se veía
como una fotografía en papel que alguien había agarrado y estrujado en la mano y que luego
había soltado, lo que había creado extrañas elevaciones y depresiones; un relieve que cambiaba
de forma a medida que el papel se relajaba, una lenta metamorfosis sobresaltada aquí y allá por
extraños espasmos: la repentina aparición de un cometa, la espuma en la cresta de una ola, el
aleteo histérico de una sombrilla a rayas.
62. Standing there, looking back towards her parents, she tried to assess how long it would
take her to make it to them, and to supplies, and then on to the toilets up at the top of the beach.
The memory of an attempted swim was fresh with humiliating detail: those rivulets of watery
blood coursing down her legs. She hadn’t even noticed. She had been standing on her beach
towel shivering with pleasure from the salty cold, when her mother had said, ‘Frank .’ From
her rock she could see her father, on his feet, arms crossed, looking out towards the water – a
pose she recognised from the lecture theatre, where as a child she had once been allowed to sit
and watch. She could see the girls in their bikinis, ankle-deep in the water, long hair snatched
up by the wind. She could see the older man reading to the little girl up above the line of
seaweed, and Christopher in his floppy sun hat dragging a spade in solitary circles in the sand.
‘Only boring people—’ she mouthed. And then, ‘Only boring people, Christopher, get bored,’
she said, parroting Ms Wilson her head teacher.

63. Hot and dizzy, she sat on the smooth stone, her legs stretched in front, palms flat. She
closed her eyes and felt the breeze that was coming off the water licking at her face. Behind
her lids something plummeted, fast and dark and heavy – as if all the movement on the beach
had found its way inside to merge with the exhaustion she felt pulling her down. She lay back,
the noise of people – the hordes, their screams – fading to something distant.

64. Years later, she would try to describe the feeling to a boyfriend who wanted to know
what it was like; who found it all fascinating; who used the word ‘menses’; who would ask her
to set it out over brunch in King’s Cross, even knowing that people could hear. She would find
herself embarrassed on his behalf for being so po-faced, for being such a fucking try-hard.

65. ‘You’ll never know,’ she would say, mashing her eggs Benedict with her fork and
slowly shaking her head, all the while willing some laughter, longing for more of a sense of
humour from him. But he would insist.

66. ‘This is what it feels like,’ she would say, as they sat hemmed in at their table, couples
in their faces on either side. ‘It feels like a hand is reaching inside you and twisting until you
double over, thighs aching, burning. Between the legs: rawness, heat, and blood, and lust, and
fear, and disgust, and shame, and humiliation.’

67. ‘Eat up,’ she would say, as he picked at his food.

68. He would be disappointed, even hurt; would shake his head slowly; would say, as they
settled their bill, that she wasn’t the person he’d hoped for; would say she had a hard edge that
he couldn’t fathom.

69. It was the sound of rock on rock that woke her. She raised her head and opened her
eyes, brushing vaguely with her forearm at moisture collected around her mouth.
65. Desde ahí, mirando hacia atrás en dirección a sus padres, intentó calcular cuánto tardaría
en llegar hasta ellos y las provisiones, y luego más allá, hasta los baños, arriba donde
comenzaba la playa. El recuerdo de un intento de nado estaba latente con un humillante nivel
de detalle: aquellos riachuelos de sangre aguada cayendo por sus piernas. Ella ni lo había
notado. Había estado parada sobre su toalla tiritando con placer por el frío salado cuando su
madre le había dicho «Frank». Desde su roca podía ver a su padre, de pie, de brazos cruzados,
mirando hacia el agua: una pose que ella reconocía de la sala de conferencias donde una vez
de pequeña le habían permitido sentarse y mirar. Podía ver a las jóvenes en sus bikinis, con el
agua hasta los tobillos, el cabello largo tironeado por el viento. Podía ver al hombre mayor
leyéndole a la niña pasando la línea de algas, y a Christopher, con su gorro de pescador,
arrastrando una espada en círculos solitarios por la arena.

66. —Solo la gente aburrida —balbuceó. Y luego, repitiendo como un loro las palabras de
la señora Wilson, la directora de la escuela, dijo—: Christopher, solo la gente aburrida se
aburre.

67. Acalorada y mareada, se sentó en la roca lisa con las piernas estiradas frente a ella y
apoyando las palmas de las manos. Cerró los ojos y sintió como la brisa que venía del agua le
lamía la cara. Detrás de sus párpados, algo se desplomó, rápido y oscuro y pesado, como si el
movimiento en la playa hubiera encontrado su camino hacia dentro de ella para fusionarse con
el cansancio que sentía y que la tiraba hacia abajo. Se recostó hacia atrás, el ruido de la gente
—las hordas, sus gritos— disminuyó hasta convertirse en algo distante.

68. Años después, intentaría explicarle la sensación a un novio que quería saber cómo era;
al que todo eso le parecía fascinante; el que usaba la palabra «menstruación»; el que le pidió
que expusiera el tema en un almuerzo en la estación de King’s Cross aun sabiendo que la gente
podía oírlos. Ella sentía vergüenza ajena porque era tan serio, porque era un condescendiente
de mierda.

69. —Nunca lo sabrás —le dijo ella, pisando sus huevos Benedict con el tenedor y
sacudiendo la cabeza lentamente, al mismo tiempo queriendo reírse un poco, anhelando de su
parte algo más parecido al sentido del humor. Pero él insistió.

70. —Así es como se siente —dijo ella, mientras estaban sentados a la mesa, acorralados,
con parejas en sus narices a ambos lados—. Se siente como si una mano se estirara en tu interior
y se retorciera hasta hacerte doblar; los muslos duelen, arden. Entre las piernas: crudeza, calor
y sangre y lujuria y miedo y asco y vergüenza y humillación.

71. —Termínate la comida —le dijo, mientras él comía de poca gana.

72. Él se sentía decepcionado, incluso herido; sacudía la cabeza lentamente; decía, mientras
pagaban la cuenta, que ella no era la persona que él había esperado que fuera; decía que tenía
un carácter muy fuerte que él no lograba comprender.

73. Fue el sonido de roca contra roca lo que la despertó. Levantó la cabeza y abrió los ojos
mientras, se limpiaba un poco con el antebrazo la humedad acumulada alrededor de la boca.
70. She saw him, like a vision at the water’s edge, moving slowly towards her. He didn’t
have his floppy hat on, but wore goggles, and yellow flippers, oversized. He was luminously
pale, and wide-eyed, with every movement halting.

71. He was a thing of awkward beauty, a strange bird newly hatched.

72. ‘Oh, Christopher,’ she said, half under her breath.

73. A rush of warmth from her belly and she was laughing. She was delighted. He seemed
to her lit up. She was surprised at the feeling that caught in her throat.

74. She watched as he proceeded, head craning forwards and downwards, goggled eyes
trained on each foot as he tried to take a step that proved each time almost impossible.

75. ‘Your flippers are too big,’ she murmured.

76. She watched him as he stopped and pulled the goggles up on to his forehead, and looked
about in an assessing kind of way. She watched as he poked his head forward, goggle-free, and
tried again. He would reach a point of no return, perform a pirouette on the end of each flipper
as he tried to lever it out of the wet sand.

77. ‘Your flippers are too big.’

78. She let out a sigh of relief when he changed tack and shuffled backwards – now
something closer to a crab – and actually, finally, got his feet properly wet. Knee high in the
water he re-secured his goggles, and folded himself so he was doubled over and peering down
beneath the surface of the sea.

79. Again, Frank heard rock striking against rock. She tried to follow the sound but it came
in bursts, sporadic, and the way noise was carried about on the breeze it was hard to tell.

80. She saw then, scrambling on rocks close by, where seaweed was pasted in dark seams
underfoot, the woman: topless, shrunken, her hair hanging matted to her neck. She must have
been sixty at least, but along her hairline, running sideways and framing her face, there was a
plait – the kind of thing schoolgirls had. Frank understood now what it was she had heard, saw
the woman squat to attack a citadel of limpets, saw her hacking at them, over and over, with a
rock. When she set the rock down, and the sound stopped, she brought the broken shells to her
mouth, one by one, and sucked the tender creatures out.

81. Awful.
74. Lo vio, era como una visión a la orilla del agua, moviéndose lentamente hacia ella. No
tenía puesto su gorro de pescador, sino gafas para nadar y aletas de buceo amarillas, demasiado
grandes para él. Era luminosamente pálido y de ojos grandes, vacilante en cada movimiento.

75. Era una cosa de extraña belleza, un pájaro raro recién salido del cascarón.

76. —Ay, Christopher —dijo, algo por lo bajo.

77. Una ráfaga de calor en el vientre y se echó a reír. Estaba encantada. Él le parecía
iluminado. Estaba sorprendida por la sensación que quedó atrapada en su garganta.

78. Miró como proseguía, con la cabeza inclinándose hacia adelante y hacia atrás; los ojos
con gafas enfocados en cada pie al intentar dar un paso que cada vez demostraba ser casi
imposible.

79. —Tus aletas son demasiado grandes —murmuró.

80. Miró como frenaba y levantaba las gafas hacia su frente y miraba a su alrededor, como
evaluando la situación. Miró como asomaba la cabeza hacia adelante, sin gafas, e intentaba de
nuevo. Llegaba a un punto donde no había vuelta atrás, hacía una pirueta sobre la punta de cada
aleta intentando hacer palanca para quitarla de la arena.

81. —Tus aletas son demasiado grandes.

82. Dejó salir un suspiro de alivio cuando él cambió de estrategia y arrastró los pies hacia
atrás —ahora era algo parecido a un cangrejo— y esta vez sí, por fin, pudo mojar sus pies como
es debido. Con el agua hasta las rodillas, ajustó sus gafas nuevamente, se inclinó y quedó
doblado, mirando debajo de la superficie del agua.

83. Otra vez, Frank oyó el golpe de roca contra roca. Intentó seguir el sonido, pero le llegaba
en ráfagas esporádicas y como el ruido era transportado por la brisa era difícil de discernir.

84. Luego vio que, trepándose a las rocas cercanas, donde las algas estaban pegadas en
uniones oscuras bajo los pies, estaba la mujer: con el torso desnudo, marchita, con el cabello
enmarañado y apelmazado colgando del cuello. Debía de tener sesenta, por lo menos, pero a lo
largo de la línea del cabello, hacia un lado del rostro y enmarcándolo, tenía una trenza, la clase
de cosas que tenían las colegialas. Frank entendió en ese momento qué era lo que había oído,
vio a la mujer acuclillarse para atacar a una fortaleza de moluscos, la vio cazarlos con una roca,
una y otra vez. Cuando dejó la roca y el sonido paró, llevó los caparazones rotos a su boca, uno
por uno, y succionó a las tiernas criaturas.

85. Horrible.
82. The woman was spider-like, scrawny. A string of weathered shells, like little skulls,
were slung around her neck. More of them garlanded her hair. Hollow-eyed and freakish. One
of Frank’s father’s favourites. They had seen her at the British Museum. She appeared half-
starved, and voracious: the great goddess in the form of an old hag. From collarbones down to
empty breasts her ribs were scored across her chest.

83. Standing to go, Frank knew she was in trouble; a clot of dark blood had somehow
worked its way into the open from between her legs. A change of position? The movement to
stand? It didn’t matter now. It had fingered its mark on her upper thigh – a stamp, black and
fibrous.

84. Movement. What looked to her like seaweed bothered by the wind. Again she saw that
scraggy, salt-tangled hair. She felt herself to be swaying up on her rock, and dizzy. She was
frightened. She tried to plot a route back to her parents, whatever the humiliation involved. She
turned at a sound close by, and found those pitted eyes fixed on her from only a few feet away,
a smile on the woman’s lips. Everything went silent. She felt her insides twist.

85. And then the pieces on the chessboard moved all at once, no rules to their game.

86. Frank would remember this moment later, when, aged thirty-five, she lost control of
her car on a bend, watched her hands sit impassively on the wheel as the car ran off the road
and lost its hold on the earth, as it found the tipping point beyond which there is no return,
falling, rolling then in a movement of some grace until it flipped and settled in the shallow
waters of a saltmarsh. The paralysis she would feel, the separation from the scene as she hung
there suspended by her seatbelt, the world upside down and brackish water sidling in through
the open window of the car.

87. She had simply watched it unfolding: a story over which she had no control.

88. She saw the man in yellow Speedos striding out into the water, all sure-footed
muscularity. He passed the girls, who were leaping over the smallest of the waves. He broke
into a run, his legs ploughing the water, and then – arms arrowed forward – he pierced the
surface and disappeared. She thought in that moment to look for Christopher, but was distracted
by the sight of the older man – the man earlier with the small girl – who was alone now, and
walking fast, running even, seemed to be running towards Frank. Frank looked for the little girl
and could not find her. She caught movement on the rocks closest to the sand. She saw that the
man was running not to her but to the end of the beach, where the scrawny woman was now
standing up to her knees in the water – all leather, all skin and bones, the string of shells hanging
down from her neck.

89. But it was not even to her that he was running, Frankie realised, at last. He was not
running to her.
86. La mujer era como una araña, escuálida. De su cuello colgaba un cordel con conchas
erosionadas, como pequeñas calaveras. Más de éstas decoraban su cabello. De ojos hundidos
y peculiar. Una de las favoritas del padre de Frank. La habían visto en el Museo Británico.
Parecía casi famélica y voraz: la gran diosa en forma de una vieja bruja. Desde la clavícula
hasta los pechos vacíos, las costillas sobresalían a lo largo de su torso.

87. Cuando se puso de pie para irse, Frank supo que estaba en problemas; de alguna manera,
un coágulo de sangre oscura había logrado salir por la abertura entre sus piernas. ¿Un cambio
de posición? ¿El movimiento para pararse? Ya no importaba. Había imprimido su marca en la
parte superior del muslo; un sello negro y fibroso.

88. Movimiento. Algo que le parecía un alga fastidiada por el viento. De nuevo, vio aquel
cabello áspero y enmarañado por la sal. Se sentía tambaleante sobre su roca y mareada. Estaba
asustada. Intentó planear una ruta para volver a sus padres, sin importar la humillación que
aquello implicara. Se dio la vuelta al oír un sonido cerca y encontró aquellos ojos ahuecados
fijos en ella desde solo unos pocos metros de distancia, una sonrisa en los labios de la mujer.
Se hizo un silencio total. Sintió que se le retorcían las entrañas.

89. Y luego las piezas en el tablero de ajedrez se movieron todas al mismo tiempo, en su
juego no había reglas.

90. Más adelante, Frank recordaría este momento cuando, con 35 años, perdió el control de
su auto en una curva, miró sus manos apoyadas sobre el volante sin inmutarse mientras el auto
se salía del camino, perdía el agarre a la tierra y encontraba, así, el punto crítico del que no hay
vuelta atrás, cayendo, rodando luego en un movimiento de cierta gracia hasta volcar e instalarse
en las aguas poco profundas de una marisma. La parálisis que sentiría, disociada de la escena,
mientras colgaba allí suspendida por su cinturón de seguridad, con el mundo dado vuelta y el
agua semisalada que se deslizaba hacia adentro del auto a través de la ventana abierta.

91. Ella simplemente había mirado cómo sucedía: una historia sobre la que no tenía control
alguno.

92. Vio al hombre de slip amarillo entrar al agua dando zancadas, todo músculos y seguro
de sí mismo. Pasó a las jóvenes, que estaban saltando las olas más pequeñas. Entró al mar
corriendo, las piernas surcaban el agua, y luego —con los brazos como flecha hacia adelante—
perforó la superficie y desapareció. En ese momento, pensó en buscar a Christopher, pero se
distrajo al mirar al señor mayor —el que antes estaba con la niña— que ahora estaba solo y
caminando rápido, incluso corriendo; parecía estar corriendo hacia Frank. Frank buscó a la niña
y no pudo encontrarla. Percibió movimiento en las rocas más cercanas a la arena. Vio que el
hombre no estaba corriendo hacia ella, sino hacia el fin de la playa, donde estaba la mujer
escuálida, ahora parada con el agua hasta las rodillas: toda cuero, toda piel y huesos, la cuerda
de conchas colgada de su cuello.

93. Pero ni siquiera era hacia ella que el hombre corría, Frankie se percató, al fin. Él no
estaba corriendo hacia ella.
90. It was to Christopher, who was bobbing adrift in the shallows, the tender skin of his
back white in the sun.
94. Corría hacia Christopher, que estaba meciéndose a la deriva cerca de la orilla, con la
delicada piel de su espalda blanca al rayo del sol.
 The translation of “The Shallows”

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to describe the problems that have arisen in the translation

of “The Shallows”, a short story written by Katherine J. Orr, and to illustrate the techniques

and strategies employed to solve them by explaining the most relevant choices made by the

translator.

“The Shallows” is a coming-of-age story in which Frank, the protagonist, remembers

how she felt as a teenager when she got her period on a seaside holiday. She recalls a particular

day at the beach when she declined a young boy’s invitation to play with him because she felt

uneasy with her period and, later, she failed to notice that the kid had drowned because she was

distracted by a stain of blood. This day seems to change Frank’s life, since feelings of

humiliation and guilt are also present in newer memories.

This story belongs to a collection of short stories titled The Light Box. Most of these

stories were written as part of Orr’s doctoral thesis, for which she tried to explore liminality in

relation to the short story through critical and creative writing. Liminality designates “a space

or state which is situated in between others, usually more clearly defined, spaces, periods or

identities” (Cuddon, 2013). Orr has also expressed her interest in exploring “(...) characters

being confronted with change – people who were in transition, physically or emotionally, and

living on a threshold of some kind” (2016).

In the same line of thought, the story takes place at a threshold space: where land meets

sea, and metaphors constantly join the human world and the natural world. Furthermore, “The

Shallows” explores a change which every woman experiences in her life, and recovers what

was left unsaid: Frank is ashamed of her period to the extent that she cannot even talk to her

family about it because that is the way it is supposed to be. The consequences of this will chase

her the rest of her life.

 The author’s interest in liminality might also find its correspondence in her peculiar

style and the story’s formal qualities, marked by the repetition of actions and routines and their

disruption. Although there is a structure of beginning, middle and end at one level (Christopher

invites her to play, he plays alone and then he drowns), at another level the reader has access

to the character’s inner struggle with a memory she cannot process and which is left without

resolution. In this way, Frank’s memories are described in a rather fragmentary way: the

protagonist’s stream of consciousness wanders through a series of juxtaposed snapshots of

what she was seeing, remembering, feeling and thinking.

The choice of this short story stems from the treatment of taboo topics in translation,

but of course translation problems and difficulties were not restricted to this. In the following

sections, these problems and difficulties are particularized, exemplified and analyzed.

The overall approach to the translation

This commission consists in translating from English (UK) into Spanish a single short

story which has not been translated before. Although in this case this is part of an academic

assignment, one could imagine being commissioned the same task by a magazine or newspaper

with a Spanish version.

Bearing this commission in mind, the translator should imagine a wide readership for

two main reasons. Firstly, taking into consideration that the short story has not been translated

before, probably the commissioner would like to reach as many people as possible. Secondly,

when dealing with a translation from English into Spanish, one should take into account the

size of the Spanish speaking community: “El tamaño del mercado y la relación metrópolis-

periferia les exigen [a los traductores latinoamericanos] cierta Neutralidad de lenguaje.” [The

size of the market and the metropoli-periphery relation ask Latin American translators for a

certain language Neutrality] (Averbach, 2011:22).

 Here, Averbach also mentions the relation between the source culture and the target

culture. In the case at hand, the source culture is hegemonic and a major source literature while

the target culture is not. In this way, the translation of this short story would occupy a primary

position in TL literary polysystem and, therefore, TL models would impose no constraints and

the translation will be close to the original (Even-Zohar, 1990:196).

This is also related to the way in which the target readership is expected to respond to

this text. Hegemonic cultures are represented in the dominated cultures by a great number of

translations because they are interesting to a broad public. This is related to the constant

importation from English-speaking America, resulting in a growing familiarity with and

acceptability of the Anglo-saxon values and specific cultural reality (Aixelá, 1996:54). In the

same line of thought, Robinson explains that the power relation between exporting (active) and

importing (passive) systems “obliges given populations to adapt themselves to the idiom and

the rules of the visitors” (2011: 37). Therefore, even though texts from a HC are usually written

in ignorance of the DC, the receiving readership will be familiar with the source culture and if

not it will be highly receptive of it.

Taking all of this into consideration, it was concluded that the overall approach to the

translation should be that of an exoticising documentary translation, as proposed by Nord

(1997). This method is the conventional form of modern literary translations, it focuses on

textual units and “the ‘setting’ of the story is left unchanged, producing an ‘exotic’ effect on

the target readers where the original readers found their own culture reflected in the text” (Nord,

1997:53). Although Venuti (1997) emphasizes on the subversive potential of foregnizing

methods, Hurtado Albir (2011) states that this depends on the underlying power relation. In

this case, the choice was actually to conform to the standards established by this power relation,

for the sake of the text’s divulgation.

 Analysis

The analysis of a translation includes a classification (Hurtado Albir, 2011) of the

translation problems selected for this essay and a description of the strategies and techniques

employed to solve them based on the approaches of Hurtado Albir (2011), Aixelá (1996) and

Berman (1985).

Linguistic problems

This category has to do mostly with the differences between languages (lexical and

morphosyntactic aspects) that affect comprehension or reproduction. In this category the most

challenging problems were related to verbs and their qualities.

On the one hand, tense is crucial to have full understanding of this short story since it

is made of memories belonging to various points in time that follow a stream of consciousness.

Therefore, the timeline was carefully analyzed at the comprehension stage in order to provide

a correct rendering. The present of the story is fixed at the time it is being read, so the tenses

employed are: (1) Past simple, primarily to narrate the main memory, but also for newer

memories, like in paragraph 86; (2) Past perfect, for events that occur at some point in that

summer, like in paragraphs 9-16, or earlier that day, like in paragraph 26, and for memories

that are previous to the main story, like in paragraphs 24-25; (3) The modal “would” is used

for routines in the past, like in paragraphs 17 and 25, and as future in the past, like in paragraphs

64-68.

At the reproduction stage, one realizes that Spanish does not admit the use of the

conditional for long stretches of prose, even though it has the same function of pospretérito

(Bello, 1995) as “would”. It thus became necessary to reduce the use of verbs in this tense and

to compensate for the distinction between time layers elsewhere. For instance, in paragraphs

64-68 the conditional tense introduces the anecdote together with the time expression “años
después” in order to situate the action at the correct point in the timeline and then the narration

moves back to a past simple tense with a perfective aspect.

On the other hand, when translating from English into Spanish, the translator has to

decide on the aspect of actions since it is not morphologically marked and can sometimes be

ambiguous. In order to do so, the distinction established by Averbach (2011) was followed:

perfective aspect is used for actions that are seen from the future as a point in the past time

while the imperfective is used to locate the narration within a period of time in which the action

described by the verb has already started and has not finished yet.

The first ten paragraphs were the most troublesome in this respect, where an imaginary

situation of what “tended to happen” is presented. For “tended to happen” and “played itself

out” (para. 2), an imperfective aspect was chosen: “Así era como solía ocurrir. Así era como

la escena se desarrollaba”. The last paragraph employs a parallel structure to create contrast

with this one, finally revealing that “this was not how it had happened, not how it had played

itself out”. This was translated using a perfective aspect in order to reproduce this contrast, and

a simple past instead of a past perfect which reproduces best the emphatic effect of had. For

the remaining paragraphs, a perfective aspect was chosen since the ambiguity of the original

gives the impression that a story is beginning to be told until the narrator explains that the story

has not started yet.

Lastly, as regards non-specialized vocabulary, vague language caused problems at the

reproduction stage. Words like boy and girl are used both for teens and kids and are usually

defined by their context. Since this short story does not specify the character's ages, the decision

was made based on the interpretation of their description. In this way, boy for Christopher was

interpreted as niño, because he is described as small and his mother is constantly over him.

Girl, on the other hand, was translated as chica to refer to the girls chatting near Frank,

described as “mature”, and as niña for the one holding the hand of the old man.
Textual problems

This category has to do with cohesion, coherence, genre conventions and style and

derive from the differences in the organization of discourse between languages.

The arrangement of discourse reflects the style of the author and punctuation has an

important part in it. Furthermore, Berman (1985) considers rationalization, that is, the

recomposition and rearrangement of sentences, as a deforming tendency in translation. This

was thus avoided where possible in order to preserve the author’s style and obligatory changes

in punctuation were made consistently.

One of these obligatory changes involved dialogue punctuation: dialogues in English

are introduced by inverted commas while, in Spanish, they are introduced by an Em Dash. An

exception was made in the first paragraph, which is an intervention that Frank hears without

knowing that it is directed at her. Therefore, instead of signalling this locution with an Em Dash

as if it were starting a conversation, it was rendered within guillemets («, »).

Secondly, the hyphen (and the Em Dash in American style) is used in English to signal

strong interruptions, to emphasize the conclusion of a sentence, or as commas or colons. In

Spanish, Em Dashes are used only for interruptions as a double punctuation mark. Hyphens

were therefore replaced by a colon (:) when they introduced a description, a conclusion or an

exemplification (para. 1, 16 and 24). Since both languages share the parenthetical function of

the Em Dash (or hyphen in British style), it was kept when it was a double sign, except where

the interruption could be misread as a narrator's commentary after a speaker turn (para. 5).

As regards the author’s style, there are many sentences (mostly descriptions and

enumerations) without verbs or articles. This is also a linguistic problem since these are not

common structures in Spanish. However, these were translated as closely to the original as

possible since they were considered a distinguishing feature of the author’s style.
 An example of this is paragraph 10, which starts with a verbless sentence: “That queue,

over and over – bodies shuffling inch by slow inch, limbs lazy in the sun, arms swatting

listlessly at flies, like the tails of cows.” The more literal translation showed the deforming

tendencies of rationalization, expansion and the destruction of rhythm (Berman, 1985): “Esa

fila, una y otra vez: cuerpos que avanzaban arrastrando los pies, centímetro a centímetro,

lento; extremidades perezosas al sol; brazos que espantaban moscas, sin fuerza, como las colas

de las vacas.” The absence of a one-word for “shuffle” in Spanish and collocation issues make

this version longer and more interrupted, since it requires a change in punctuation. Adaptation

was almost obligatory in order to avoid this unnecessary deformation. The proposed version

maintains the rhythm, length and punctuation (except for the obligatory adaptation of the Em

Dash): “Esa fila, una y otra vez: cuerpos que arrastraban lento cada paso, extremidades

perezosas al sol, brazos que espantaban sin fuerza a las moscas, como las colas de las vacas”

(para. 12). What was sacrificed here was the expression “inch by inch” which, translated as

“paso a paso” turned into “cada paso” which also works metonymically for “los pies”.

Extralinguistic problems

This category is related to cultural differences and includes specialized concepts (i.e.

those related to the topic) and encyclopedic and cultural items.

Culture-specific Items

Culture-specific Items were the major source of problems in this category. Aixelá

(1996) defines a Culture-specific Item as any textually actualized linguistic representation of a

reference in the source text that poses a translation problem when transferred to TL due to its

referent’s nonexistence or to its having a different value in both languages (p. 57-58).

Based on this definition, paragraph 24 was found to be densely loaded with culture

specific items. The first problem was the nonexistence of an equivalent concept for alcove in

TL. This term may stand for “a small recessed section of a room: nook” or for “an arched
opening (as in a wall): niche” (Merriam-webster.com, 2020). It is a quite common space in

anglosaxon houses; some of them have a kind of bed built into the wall, others have a bookcase.

After finding a wide variety of infelicitous translation options like cenador or porche and

starting to think about a general term such as rincón, I looked up the entire noun phrase (“living

room alcove”) and I found that these are mostly bookcases. The final decision was to “delete

any foreign connotations and choose a neutral reference for their readers” (Aixelá, 1996:63) by

employing a substitution technique, universalization, and translating it as estantería.

Another problem related to the way in which both languages categorize and name the

material culture was encountered in the translation of brunch (para. 64). It describes “a meal

usually taken late in the morning that combines a late breakfast and an early lunch” (Merriam-

webster.com, 2020). Among Spanish-speaking countries there are different names for meals:

while Argentina’s main midday meal is called almuerzo, in Spain it is called comida and

almuerzo stands for a meal taken in mid-morning. The decision was to translate it as almuerzo

which, at least in Spain, is nearer in meaning to brunch. This will allow the meaning to be

recovered in some Spanish-speaking countries, while avoiding a cumbersome paratextual

explanation of what a brunch is. In this case, the technique consists of limited universalization

or absolute universalization depending on the readership.

In the same way, going back to paragraph 24, there is a difference in the way in which

both communities name a piece of chess: the equivalent in Spanish for the English knight

(caballero) is caballo. In this case, it was hard to opt for a domesticating technique since the

knight and his horse are described separately, so this had to be linguistically translated into

caballero and corcel respectively.

Another aspect that is culture specific is that of taboo or bad language. There are swear

words in “one bitch of a week” (para. 24) and in “a fucking try-hard” (para. 64). Following the

comparison between the levels of intensity of swear words in English and Spanish proposed
by Badenes (2020), the cultural element was adapted by replacing it for one that belongs to TL:

“una semana de mierda” (para. 26) and “un condescendiente de mierda” (para. 69). Just as

Hurtado Albir (2011) proposes, using domesticating techniques does not mean that the overall

result will not be a foreignizing translation. Here, adaptation is the only technique that allows

to produce an equivalent pragmatic effect, which is usually what matters the most when it

comes to swear words.

Another CSI in this short story was the unit of measure “inch”. In paragraph 1, “inches”

was translated as “centímetros” because what prevails in this expression is the effect of

closeness, which calls for an adapted version with which the readership is more familiar. On

the other hand, the case of “inch by slow inch” (para. 10) was dealt with above.

Lastly, I will be dealing with the most common CSIs which are proper names, the first

case being the brand “Speedos” (para. 21 and 88). In the Spanish-speaking community, while

“Coca-Cola” may function as a substitute for any cola drink, “Speedos” is not emblematic of

men swimwear. Therefore, if these were kept, the reader would have to make a bigger effort to

remember what products are produced by Speedos. The decision was thus to employ a

universalizing technique by substituting it for the term “slip”, which is in turn a pure (non-

naturalized) borrowing from English, keeping some of the foreignizing effect.

Going back to paragraph 24, there is also a reference to the Lewis Chessmen. This is a

medieval 12th-century chess set found in Lewis, Scotland, and its imitations are

commercialized. Spanish speakers are not familiar with these but, at the same time, there is

nothing similar in Spanish-speaking countries. Therefore, the cultural reference was kept by

employing a linguistic (non-cultural) translation technique and the resulting translation was

“las piezas de ajedrez de Lewis” (para. 26).

Lastly, geographic references to places in London were preserved: while King’s Cross

was given an intratextual gloss with a generic term (“estación de King’s Cross”), the British
Museum was translated by its pre-established translation which is, at the same time, a calque:

“el Museo Británico”. Besides target culture familiarity with anglosaxon cultures, previous

translations of these CSIs were taken into consideration when deciding to keep them. Thanks

to the preservation of the last three CSIs, the readership will be able to identify the setting as

English.

Specialized language

This short story had no highly specialized concepts since it revolves around universal

topics (seaside holidays, periods). However, at the reproduction stage it became necessary to

check constantly for regional variations and localisms of vocabulary belonging to the semantic

networks related to these topics. As a result of this, words like sunga, ojota, toallita, toalla

femenina, toallón (de playa), antiparra, patas de rana, piluso, bolso, etc. had to be discarded.

The choice between the most universalized options —or, rather, those that are used mainly in

Spain and Mexico and, therefore, in most Spanish translations— was based on their frequency,

consulted in corpora. Examples of these are protector solar vs. pantalla solar or filtro solar

and toalla sanitaria vs. toalla higiénica.

The item belonging to this semantic network that caused more trouble and involved

more research was Christopher’s hat. Its description (para. 4) creates difficulties in its

translation into Spanish since it involves multiple adjectives for few nouns and it evokes a

bucket hat (gorro de pescador). The description was kept because replacing it by its referent

would be overtranslating, but, after this first occurrence, it appears again as “floppy sun hat”

(para. 62) and “floppy hat” (para. 70) which were indeed translated as “gorro de pescador”.

There are two reasons for this. On the one hand, although “floppy” is a descriptive term and

not the actual name for that kind of hat, options like “blando” do not evoke this kind of hat in

Spanish. On the other hand, keeping just “gorro para el sol” for these two instances would be
undertranslating since “gorro para el sol” may also include a type of sun hat that is not floppy,

such as a straw hat.

Finally, there were some foreign voices that were borrowed for this semantic network

like bikini, slip, and picnic based on their frequency. Slip had to be signalled as foreign by using

italics, but bikini and picnic are already included in the dictionary in roman print. Picnic is

naturalized as pícnic and the dictionary provides a naturalized option for bikini (biquini) but it

is neither frequently nor widely used.

Problems of intention

These derive from difficulties in grasping information from the source text at the

reproduction stage and include problems related to intention, intertextuality, speech acts,

presuppositions and implicatures. The most relevant problem in this category was the title.

The title was approached once the translation was finished in order to take into account

other appearances of the same noun phrase in the text, which were already translated in context

and coherently. The word shallows refers to “a shallow place or area in a body of water”

(Merriamwebster.com, 2020) and appears only twice within the text (para. 13 and 90) always

referring to the shallow area of the sea, and the word shallow (adj.) appears once, modifying

the word waters (paragraph 86). At first, the title was interpreted to have a secondary meaning

which referred to shallowness —the shallowness of the characters that think about themselves

while others are in trouble, or the shallowness in the fact that there is such a taboo around

periods in modern society. The choice of orilla —which was also employed for the translation

of “the water's edge”— implies losing this shade of meaning because it renders the relation

between the shore and shallowness much more difficult to make.

It is often suggested that titles of literary works should be “attractive, allusive,

suggestive, even if it is a proper name, and should usually bear some relation to the original”

(Newmark, 1988:56). Besides being unsuitable in this respect, other options failed either to
carry the same figurative meaning (“la superficie”) or to translate felicitously the other

instances of “the shallows” (“aguas poco profundas”). Bearing this into account, it was

concluded that the most literal sense of “shore” should prevail over that of “shallowness”

because of its relation with the setting and the semantic network. Furthermore, the author was

consulted before making this decision final and she stated that this interpretation was not

intended. Even though a translation should ideally provoke the same interpretations as the

original, the arguments in favour of sacrificing this interpretation were considered to be

stronger.

Pragmatic problems

These derive from the commission and were dealt with in the first section.

Conclusion

This essay aimed to analyze translation problems and difficulties encountered in the

translation into Spanish of “The Shallows” and to account for the strategies and techniques that

were employed to solve them. This sample of the translation decision-making process shows

that problems in translation (which may be linguistic, textual, extralinguistic, pragmatic or

problems of intention) vary from one translation to the other depending on the commission,

characterised by factors such as the languages and cultures involved.

In spite of this, the generalizations made by translation studies theorists not only allow

the translator to approach her work with a method in mind, but also make a systematic analysis

of the final product possible. The compilation of translation decisions explained in this essay

is by no means exhaustive but it shows that “La orilla” is just one of many possible translation

versions of “The Shallows”. As can be gathered from the analysis, the priorities present in the

decision-making process that resulted in this version were style and outreach, and the range of

choices was limited mainly by the relationship between the two cultures and the aim at

naturalness of expression.
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