Alastair Reid, the itinerant translator of Neruda and Borges, once referred to his own memory as “more duffel bag than filing cabinet” (
Outside In, 38), and he thought the dead lived on primarily in their voices. “In the case of Neruda and Borges, their voices were for me the crucial, guiding element in my translating them. I think of their writings as encapsulations of their voices, and I hear them often in my head, always with awe, and with enduring affection” (
Inside Out, 130).
Alastair Reid (1926-2014) was born and brought up in rural Scotland, but that early Eden was shattered by the Second World War, when he was “projected sharply out of Scotland and to sea”, serving in the Royal Navy around the Indian Ocean (Outside In, 39). He learned to live with few personal
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Citation: Stephens, Cynthia. "Alastair Reid: Hispanic Voices Call". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 January 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19577, accessed 21 November 2024.]
