Prompt 03: Do first times exist?

In October 2023, Femke and Eva organised an event at Göteborg Literature House that they decided to call “First Times do not exist” referencing a quote from a book on disappropriation by Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza. We invited Jen Hayashida and Nkule Mabaso to speak about their practices of translation and citation. They both responded to the title in very different ways, and we are interested in the friction between these two approaches.

Jen talked about translation as a practice of reuse, reflecting on the position of the translator in relation to the text. She made clear that for her a “transhistorical awareness” is needed for the author/translator not to behave in a settler way, as if they were the first on the scene.

Nkule enters the scene from a different position, stating that first times might not exist, but that there is always a first time for you. She therefore focuses her view on how she enters the scene through her own horizon of experience. This focus allows her to cite and reuse with integrity.

This prompt proposes you to cross read these two snippets/statements with a third position, which is articulated in CC4r (collective conditions for reuse). It starts with a bold reminder to current and future authors, that the work they are about to release is “never yours to begin with”.

Jen Hayashida (20:07)

Because to me, it's a temporal question, which is sort of at the heart of what you titled this event? Because I think one of the hazards, or I don't want to be that absolute, but this thinking that you're the first person entering the story. I mean, this question is, to me, incredibly present now: do you call something a defence or do you call it an attack? So that to me is a way of thinking about the translator's sort of position in relation to the text? If the translator imagines that they are the first person there, in a sort of settler way, then that to me is something…  The same is true of the author. Obviously, if the author has an errand {?} in writing, where they want to claim that they are the first person there, then that to me is something that is inherently suspicious. And as a translator, I think – this is not really answering your question – but I think, to be very mindful of the fact that you're never the first person there, and to treat the language and the, the claims of the text with that kind of trans-historical awareness.

Nkule Mabaso (09:31)

And the way I'm sort of tried to approach it as thinking about it, as since I will quite collaboratively all the time and what and the title of it The like, there is no first time that gets there is no first time. But there is a first time for you. When you encounter the thing, and that thing catalyses something, how do we site and make space for that moment of encounter? How do we make an acknowledgment of this thing that happened catalysed my thinking in this way? What would be an adequate way to signal that? So in when she's handing over the books on Amazon, she does signal that by writing this inscription, but it doesn't exist anywhere else. And so what is sufficient? What would be a sufficient signal? Or way? It located? And yeah, have I said, what I said I'd say.

Collective Conditions for Re-use (CC4r) REMINDER TO CURRENT AND FUTURE AUTHORS: The authored work released under the CC4r was never yours to begin with. The CC4r considers authorship to be part of a collective cultural effort and rejects authorship as ownership derived from individual genius. This means to recognize that it is situated in social and historical conditions and that there may be reasons to refrain from release and re-use.