Translating “The Anguish of the Mestizo” by José María Arguedas

Abstract This short introduction to my translation (with Gabriela Veronelli and María Constanza Guzmán) of José María Arguedas’s “Entre el kechwa y el castellano, la angustia del mestizo” (1939), here titled “The Anguish of the Mestizo between Quechua and Spanish,” situates Arguedas’s essay within debates on translation, transculturation, and decolonial thought. Arguedas explores the existential and linguistic tensions of living between Quechua and Spanish, viewing translation as a creative and ethical negotiation between worlds. His reflections anticipate current concerns in translation studies — from eco-translation to affect studies and posthumanist approaches — highlighting translation as a site of cultural, epistemic, and ontological encounter.