Quijotes por el mundo – an exposition dedicated to all gentlemen among translators
Being a translator means to make a tough decision in your life. Being a translator means to dedicate almost every minute of your time, and more, not just to study the work you are translating. It means to learn all about the author’s style of writing, about his/her life, it means basically know the way he/she thinks. A translator never stops working. During the day in his mind there is one part which is always dedicated to think about the piece of art he is creating. Their life is very interesting and fully devoted to what they do and love.
Speaking of the profession of translator, we cannot forget about Don Quixote – the second most translated book right after The Bible. During more than 400 years since its publication in 1605 hundreds of translators has been dedicating their time to translate this masterpiece of Miguel de Cervantes. To appreciate their work and dedication to this crucial work of Spanish and universal literature Instituto Cervantes decided to organize an exhibition named “Quijotes por el mundo” (“Quixotes in the world”).
This exposition counts with 185 translations of Quixote in various languages, a special edition in Braille for people who cannot see, many adaptations for children because even when you are very young you want and can experience some adventures. They did not forget about the voices that created audiobooks or the cinematographic versions of this work of Cervantes.
Who knows, maybe seeing the exposition will help you and you will be the next person creating a new version of the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. However, the exposition is not located just in one place – it’s going to be available in the main seat of Instituto Cervantes in Madrid, it also had traveled to San Juan de Puerto Rico to the VII. International Congress of Spanish Language and right now you can see it also if you go to New York’s seat of Instituto Cervantes.
Why Don Quixote? This novel which tells the story of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha and his fellow traveler Sancho Panza has been converted in an emblematic work because of the revolution it caused at its time. In the beginnings of 17th century it wasn’t very common to come out with a novel and, more importantly, with a novel that criticized numerous aspects of the society in a very smart way – by making people laugh.
To learn about Don Quixote is one part of studying Spanish language because just knowing the culture related to the language you are learning you can learn it properly. In case you wanted to take courses of Spanish language and culture, write us an email to infoweb@closeteachers.com and ask all the questions you have in mind.
Kind regards.
