Is The World Enough? Culture, Translation, and Impassable Differences in the Life of Victoria Ocampo

Abstract

Victoria Ocampo’s work and linguistic aptitude were often criticized due to her gender and privileged social position. Her abilities were seen as intrusions into languages, cultures and a world of intellectual exchange in which she was tolerated, but never accepted. In light of recent studies on intercultural maturity, this essay argues that Ocampo’s relationship between language and culture can now be read as a blueprint for the modern world. This world is that of increased interest in globalization, one in which it is less and less rare that family members need a passport in order to visit one another, and in which heritage language speakers are no longer the odd minority. The world today is marked by transculturation and other incidences of overlapping ethnic and national heritages historically isolated for their “otherness” within a dominant socio-cultural structure seeking homogeneity to a white, western European ideology.