FROM SAMUEL BECKETT TO NANCY HUSTON: A POETICS OF SELF-TRANSLATION

[...]the process of self-translation indeed allows for a kind of recreation usually denied to other forms of translations. In 1937, in "Constructions in Analysis," he compares the psychoanalyst and the archeologist since they use the residuals of wreckage to recompose what was already buried (260); that is, under the ruins of a city once covered in ashes, as in the case of Pompeii, the essence is preserved. herefore, in a way, nothing is lost in the psyche, even though it may be presented only as "memory traces" ("Letter 52" 207), as ruins. he memory that the patient recovers is not the same as the original, nor is it a new one. his process, which is quite similar to a translation, implies an inevitable loss as well as a gain, as new arrangements can always be constructed. [...]the birthmark, literally a mark, can actually be read as a trace of the "true" identity of Kristina when she seeks her origins: "Who gave me my birthmark?" (Fault Lines 262)/ "Qui m'a donné mon grain de beauté?" (Lignes de Faille 329). [...]she suspects that she does not belong to that family and her "real" identity and memories are actually being reconstructed by an "other"-through quotations marks, by her brother. he only proof she really has is the birthmark, the trace and the inscription, which cannot be translated. [...]our memory and unconscious registers would not be readymade, but constructed through an incessant process of translation. hat is exactly the conclusion that Freud reaches in "Letter 46" of 1896, when he situates the origins of neurosis by the diferent periods in which the experiences-scenes-were marked as signs or traces that could be transposed into words.