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Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation
Frantz Fanon wrote in 1961 that 'Decolonisation is always a violent phenomenon,' meaning that the violence of colonialism can only be counteracted in kind. As colonial legacies linger today, what are the ways in which we can disentangle literary translation from its roots in imperial violence? Twenty-four writers and translators from across the world share their ideas and practices for disrupting and decolonising translation.
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 28, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 20, 2022
An absolutely necessary reading not only for people who work in publishing but for everyone. The power dynamics entrenched in the process of translation have been explored for decades if not centuries, and yet it seems to be considered a side issue when it's clearly central to the process of translation and our necessary conversations on decolonisation and activism.
It's refreshing and welcome to have a collection of such fine essays, some very close to one another in scope and intentions, while some almost contradict one another, not to underline a sense of indecision on the scope of the work, but instead to stress how multifaceted and complex the debate around these topics still is, and how so much has yet to be done to unearth such relevant and political issues: who gets to translate what, why, how and who owns what, why and how. Issues of untranslatability and refuse to be translated into the languages of the colonisers and the sad and alarming neocolonial practices that a very privileged publishing industry is forcing upon writers and translators of colour, especially those who writes and intend to translate works that don't conform to the few chosen European languages that dominate the field.
Angry, elegant, honest and accurately researched, these essays are a compulsory reading for translators and writers all over the world but most importantly are a must read for those who still think - surely candidly and optimistically - that translation is a mean of exploration and knowledge instead of a weapon that often silences, brutalises, colonises and oppresses, perpetrating inequalities and hierarchies in a field that is rigidly defined by privilege.
This book is food for thoughts and fuel for revolution.
It's refreshing and welcome to have a collection of such fine essays, some very close to one another in scope and intentions, while some almost contradict one another, not to underline a sense of indecision on the scope of the work, but instead to stress how multifaceted and complex the debate around these topics still is, and how so much has yet to be done to unearth such relevant and political issues: who gets to translate what, why, how and who owns what, why and how. Issues of untranslatability and refuse to be translated into the languages of the colonisers and the sad and alarming neocolonial practices that a very privileged publishing industry is forcing upon writers and translators of colour, especially those who writes and intend to translate works that don't conform to the few chosen European languages that dominate the field.
Angry, elegant, honest and accurately researched, these essays are a compulsory reading for translators and writers all over the world but most importantly are a must read for those who still think - surely candidly and optimistically - that translation is a mean of exploration and knowledge instead of a weapon that often silences, brutalises, colonises and oppresses, perpetrating inequalities and hierarchies in a field that is rigidly defined by privilege.
This book is food for thoughts and fuel for revolution.
August 18, 2023
"Violent Phenomena" is a collection of 21 essays on the art and ethics of translation through the lens of various translators from diverse backgrounds. The aim of this collection is to answer the question of how translators can ‘decolonize’ their translation in a publishing industry that favors works that typically pander to the stereotypical White Reader™️ (as described by Anton Hur in his essay). Furthermore, as highlighted in one of the essays, only a small percentage of translators identify as POC and the majority of them are white, which further narrows down the choice of literature that gets published and how they are framed. Reading this collection gave me so many ‘aha!’ moments as to why I tend to hate some of the critically acclaimed works that fit the bill of ‘pandering to the White Reader’, i.e. a narrative that exoticizes the culture & setting of its story and is focused on subjects which are sure to sell like wars and suffering, and it’s almost always written by men. The lack of uplifting fiction within translated literature is sad, and the plethora of translated literature available where women are often assaulted due to wars and/or misogyny is even sadder.
The subject of colonialism & the Western gaze, gender politics, lack of diversity & tokenism, and the violence inherent in the act of translation crop up within many of the essays, and each writer brings a different perspective on the issues based on their respective background and environment. Essays range from the anecdotal to a more scholarly study of the conundrums faced by POC translators when it comes to the 'norms' of the industry and the lack of opportunities afforded to them. The experience related by M. NourbeSe Philip was particularly galling because it shows how colonialism encompasses all aspects of life, even translation.
Most of us grew up with English in the background or it might be our intermediary language, thus it will take some work to decolonize our minds from looking at certain translated literature as inaccessible or ‘bad’ just because we don’t understand the values and social context presented in the narrative. There is also a worrying trend where today’s generation of kids consume mainly English- & Western-centric media through various platforms, so much so that some don't even know their mother tongue.
Overall, "Violent Phenomena" is a solid collection that will make you rethink the way you consume translated literature as readers and will hopefully spark some much-needed conversations within the bookish communities and the industry. While only one of these essays was translated from another language and not all of the writers are women, this is a timely read for #WITmonth as many of the essays deal with the subject of translated literature and the challenges it poses to translators within the industry. I’d highly recommend this to any fans of translated literature!
The subject of colonialism & the Western gaze, gender politics, lack of diversity & tokenism, and the violence inherent in the act of translation crop up within many of the essays, and each writer brings a different perspective on the issues based on their respective background and environment. Essays range from the anecdotal to a more scholarly study of the conundrums faced by POC translators when it comes to the 'norms' of the industry and the lack of opportunities afforded to them. The experience related by M. NourbeSe Philip was particularly galling because it shows how colonialism encompasses all aspects of life, even translation.
Most of us grew up with English in the background or it might be our intermediary language, thus it will take some work to decolonize our minds from looking at certain translated literature as inaccessible or ‘bad’ just because we don’t understand the values and social context presented in the narrative. There is also a worrying trend where today’s generation of kids consume mainly English- & Western-centric media through various platforms, so much so that some don't even know their mother tongue.
Overall, "Violent Phenomena" is a solid collection that will make you rethink the way you consume translated literature as readers and will hopefully spark some much-needed conversations within the bookish communities and the industry. While only one of these essays was translated from another language and not all of the writers are women, this is a timely read for #WITmonth as many of the essays deal with the subject of translated literature and the challenges it poses to translators within the industry. I’d highly recommend this to any fans of translated literature!
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July 3, 2025Read a few essays from this anthology for many a translation class and wanted to check the whole thing out. fire!!! Especially recommend reading: Right to Access by Khairani Barokka, The Mythical English Reader by Anton Hur, Why don't you translate Pakistan by Sawad Hussain, and Bad Translator by Elisa Taber
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September 2, 2022Taking its title from an observation philosopher Frantz Fanon made in 1961 ("Decolonisation is always a violent phenomenon"), Violent Phenomena asks questions about the power dynamics involved in translation. Who translates? How do we translate? These questions require time, reflection, and self-interrogation.
Given the history of colonialism, the relationship we have to language is invariably complicated. As Cairo-born literary translator Nariman Youssef and researcher Gitanjali Patel write in Violent Phenomena, "many translators of colour do not have a 'heritage language', or may be estranged from it as a result of colonial legacies, conflict, or assimilation pressures". In the same essay, they write:
"Colonial acquisition has its rules and conventions. What is brought over is made to fit into the predetermined spaces of labs, libraries and museums, its difference accentuated but its foreignness contained. These rules and conventions have been internalised by many in the West who are allowed to go through life with uncontested identities. Their curiosity about what lies beyond the realms of their own identities remains trapped within a scale of otherness: too foreign on one end, not foreign enough on the other. We see this in the exoticising sparkle around 'discovering' literature from places that have little representation in the anglophone literary sphere, as long as they contain the expected degree of foreignness; no more, no less."
Karachi writer Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi offers a similar sentiment in her essay within this collection, writing that "the idea of 'decolonising translation' seems, potentially, an oxymoron. What will we talk about next? Decolonising Colonialism?"
Read on: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-2...
Given the history of colonialism, the relationship we have to language is invariably complicated. As Cairo-born literary translator Nariman Youssef and researcher Gitanjali Patel write in Violent Phenomena, "many translators of colour do not have a 'heritage language', or may be estranged from it as a result of colonial legacies, conflict, or assimilation pressures". In the same essay, they write:
"Colonial acquisition has its rules and conventions. What is brought over is made to fit into the predetermined spaces of labs, libraries and museums, its difference accentuated but its foreignness contained. These rules and conventions have been internalised by many in the West who are allowed to go through life with uncontested identities. Their curiosity about what lies beyond the realms of their own identities remains trapped within a scale of otherness: too foreign on one end, not foreign enough on the other. We see this in the exoticising sparkle around 'discovering' literature from places that have little representation in the anglophone literary sphere, as long as they contain the expected degree of foreignness; no more, no less."
Karachi writer Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi offers a similar sentiment in her essay within this collection, writing that "the idea of 'decolonising translation' seems, potentially, an oxymoron. What will we talk about next? Decolonising Colonialism?"
Read on: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-2...
December 20, 2022
Timely collection, with some contributions I had already read in different places, and others that were new. A variety of different styles of writing (academic, personal, chatty, formal, etc), but overall I would describe the collection as public-facing, with an academically-informed bent. Some standout essays were Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi and Mona Kareem, in this first-time reading. Will be returning to this collection, I already know.
August 27, 2023
colonial thinking seeps e v e r y t h i n g. ShiftThe way we think about acamdic or professional writing still as so standardised, words, language & i had my own initial apprehension on many of the essayists personal anecdotes as opposed to...what, more higher jargon filled registers? There was Okka! And Siddiqi and Rehman and colonialishisms from a lot of places. tying in a lot of great (i've trouble with 'non-western' but eastern isn't right either.. thinkers from the global south?) I enjoyed most essays, entering into myth, the grief of translation & written word. Different oppressions within cultures, poetics of liberación, rooting to humaneness, Vastness of meanings images can take cos Power-rain & Ambedkar. Exophony, exotic otherness, epistemic disobediance. How words present, contain define epistomologicalalaly. Language is responsible for a Lot; we have failed it, it has failed us, we luve & mourn & forgive & persist. so much to be (un)done
January 18, 2024
honestly, beyond some structural issues with the general makeup of this collection, i was really struck by the majority of these essays. at times, i wished for more specificity beyond similar general statements regarding the philosophy and ethical framing of translation. of course, these ethics are the throughline of this text, but more textual close reading in the earlier half of the collection would’ve helped me distinguish some of those theses from each other. once we hit halfway, everything was deeply critical, well edited, attentive to the tightness of its syntax, and fucking brilliant. i learned. and i got fired up.
all this to say, definitely recommend.
all this to say, definitely recommend.
February 18, 2024
very rich, eye-opening, and thought-provoking
April 23, 2023
Should be required reading for all new translators and all comparative literature courses. So many thoughts/so many new texts I want to read. Just a couple of things for my future reference here:
Quote from Onaiza Drazu, "Worlds in a Word: Loss and Translation in Kashmir": "Translators often evoke the cliché of being traitors to tongues when translating texts. 'Traduttore, traditore', the Italian saying goes, 'translator, traitor'. Gregory Rabassa begins his memoir by examining this treason. As speakers, we don't pay much attention to the betrayals of translation that we bring into everyday speech. We don't notice the shame associated with speaking a tongue in the presence of power. How we shrivel our tongues, and force the words to come out in the language of the powerful. We don't notice the disdain of 'superstition', the perceived superiority of rationality, and the self-censoring that ensues, cleansing our sentences of imagery of the other world. Our everyday tongue is slowly becoming globalised, bereft of the idiom that makes it aesthetically beautiful. We also don't notice what agendas we bring into our speech. What have we taken on and what have we forgotten? Our tongue, the very marker of who we are and what has kept us together and guarded us from our outside, is being used to polarise from within. In the process, it is also being lost - an unconscious loss for those who stand proudly guarding their home" (225).
Notes/quotes from Madhu H. Kaza, "Not a Good Fit": "When I first started reading Telugu, I didn't immediately love the stories I was translating. They were feminist stories of women coming to awakening in a deeply misogynist society, but I found the stories somewhat didactic, overly sociological. I didn't think they were all that good. But I knew that I would have to think through this first judgment. I couldn't dismiss the quality of the work without further interrogation, nor could I assume my reaction was an innocent matter of taste. To reject the work outright because it didn't meet my expectations would be to re-create a colonial violence. . . . . In a contemporary context, the rejection of a vernacular literature which doesn't align with American aesthetics or a global style, can reinforce neo-imperialist, market driven demands for more easily translatable and easily consumable global fiction" (313). Also, reading for a text's "anthropological" value is a form of "cultural condescension" (not seeing it as literature in its own right) at best and "the cultural equivalent of intelligence gathering" at worst (313). Every group's literature has its own literary values, and they may not all match up (side note re: cold-war CIA funding of the IWW and Paris Review to create an American literature that was apolitical and supportive of individualism/capitalism--how did I not know this??).
"Among [the group of] those writing out of the resources of their own local traditions rather than in a dominant Anglophone style, are Telugu writers. Because their word defies Anglophone literary values it will be less widely read and readily dismissed as failing to meet American standards of excellence and taste. It will not be a good fit.
"But it is precisely in this moment of democratic crisis in the U.S. that other literatures with their ill-fitting aesthetics and divergent styles might be most necessary for us to encounter. It's a moment when we need to ask ourselves what function our literary forms serve in our culture and what other purposes they might serve. If I found myself uncomfortable with the committed writing that I first stumbled upon in Telugu, I was also discouraged when I was in India in 2014 and I was asked why, after the U.S. had been at war for more than ten years, the war didn't show up in American writing. Why are peo9ple still writing about suburban ennui, someone asked me? Why doesn't your literature reflect upon the terrible upheaval your country has created in the world? These were excellent questions, and I had no answer" (315).
And "In reading across distances what we gain is not simply more company, but an opening for solidarity" (316). Mic drop.
Quote from Onaiza Drazu, "Worlds in a Word: Loss and Translation in Kashmir": "Translators often evoke the cliché of being traitors to tongues when translating texts. 'Traduttore, traditore', the Italian saying goes, 'translator, traitor'. Gregory Rabassa begins his memoir by examining this treason. As speakers, we don't pay much attention to the betrayals of translation that we bring into everyday speech. We don't notice the shame associated with speaking a tongue in the presence of power. How we shrivel our tongues, and force the words to come out in the language of the powerful. We don't notice the disdain of 'superstition', the perceived superiority of rationality, and the self-censoring that ensues, cleansing our sentences of imagery of the other world. Our everyday tongue is slowly becoming globalised, bereft of the idiom that makes it aesthetically beautiful. We also don't notice what agendas we bring into our speech. What have we taken on and what have we forgotten? Our tongue, the very marker of who we are and what has kept us together and guarded us from our outside, is being used to polarise from within. In the process, it is also being lost - an unconscious loss for those who stand proudly guarding their home" (225).
Notes/quotes from Madhu H. Kaza, "Not a Good Fit": "When I first started reading Telugu, I didn't immediately love the stories I was translating. They were feminist stories of women coming to awakening in a deeply misogynist society, but I found the stories somewhat didactic, overly sociological. I didn't think they were all that good. But I knew that I would have to think through this first judgment. I couldn't dismiss the quality of the work without further interrogation, nor could I assume my reaction was an innocent matter of taste. To reject the work outright because it didn't meet my expectations would be to re-create a colonial violence. . . . . In a contemporary context, the rejection of a vernacular literature which doesn't align with American aesthetics or a global style, can reinforce neo-imperialist, market driven demands for more easily translatable and easily consumable global fiction" (313). Also, reading for a text's "anthropological" value is a form of "cultural condescension" (not seeing it as literature in its own right) at best and "the cultural equivalent of intelligence gathering" at worst (313). Every group's literature has its own literary values, and they may not all match up (side note re: cold-war CIA funding of the IWW and Paris Review to create an American literature that was apolitical and supportive of individualism/capitalism--how did I not know this??).
"Among [the group of] those writing out of the resources of their own local traditions rather than in a dominant Anglophone style, are Telugu writers. Because their word defies Anglophone literary values it will be less widely read and readily dismissed as failing to meet American standards of excellence and taste. It will not be a good fit.
"But it is precisely in this moment of democratic crisis in the U.S. that other literatures with their ill-fitting aesthetics and divergent styles might be most necessary for us to encounter. It's a moment when we need to ask ourselves what function our literary forms serve in our culture and what other purposes they might serve. If I found myself uncomfortable with the committed writing that I first stumbled upon in Telugu, I was also discouraged when I was in India in 2014 and I was asked why, after the U.S. had been at war for more than ten years, the war didn't show up in American writing. Why are peo9ple still writing about suburban ennui, someone asked me? Why doesn't your literature reflect upon the terrible upheaval your country has created in the world? These were excellent questions, and I had no answer" (315).
And "In reading across distances what we gain is not simply more company, but an opening for solidarity" (316). Mic drop.
November 5, 2025
"the diversity of languages is not a diversity of sounds and signs, but a diversity of views of the world." - wilhelm humboldt
this was such a wonderful collection of essays on translation! my only wish now is to know all the languages of the literature that were discussed throughout.. but i got a glimpse, a taste of each language, as well as the trouble when translating it into or from certain languages.
as is mentioned in several different essays, language is more than just words; it's culture, it's politics, it's history, etc. some words are translatable, others are less so -- but if language is more than just words, how do we carry it to another language, another readership? and then there is the matter of who gets to translate what? and again... how? i do feel that these kinds of questions become even more important in this day and age, when [redacted] has become so pervasive in our society - but i wish to scream from the top of the mountains every day, LANGUAGE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN WORDS!!!! we need translators, maybe even more now than ever.. even if people do not realise this. translation not only provides a bridge between two languages and cultures to show how much humanity is alike, but arguably (as more than one of the authors of these essays pointed out) a platform to showcase the difference that exists among us. which is just as important! difference in thought, presented with care, is soso important.
there is a lot to revisit in this collection of essays, so i may even edit this review at a later point. all i have to say is though: if you enjoy translation, as well as like to be critical about the act especially in relation to colonialism, this is THE book for you.
this was such a wonderful collection of essays on translation! my only wish now is to know all the languages of the literature that were discussed throughout.. but i got a glimpse, a taste of each language, as well as the trouble when translating it into or from certain languages.
as is mentioned in several different essays, language is more than just words; it's culture, it's politics, it's history, etc. some words are translatable, others are less so -- but if language is more than just words, how do we carry it to another language, another readership? and then there is the matter of who gets to translate what? and again... how? i do feel that these kinds of questions become even more important in this day and age, when [redacted] has become so pervasive in our society - but i wish to scream from the top of the mountains every day, LANGUAGE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN WORDS!!!! we need translators, maybe even more now than ever.. even if people do not realise this. translation not only provides a bridge between two languages and cultures to show how much humanity is alike, but arguably (as more than one of the authors of these essays pointed out) a platform to showcase the difference that exists among us. which is just as important! difference in thought, presented with care, is soso important.
there is a lot to revisit in this collection of essays, so i may even edit this review at a later point. all i have to say is though: if you enjoy translation, as well as like to be critical about the act especially in relation to colonialism, this is THE book for you.
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July 14, 2025I approached this book fully expecting it to be completely saturated with anger. And there was, but not as much as I thought there would be. There are essays that are extremely bitter anecdotes of translators who have been spat in the face by the mechanisms of the anglocentric market forces, i.e. The Western Gaze, and its appointed custodians (see entries by Baroka and Hussain). The Gaze chooses which and how translation occurs, flattening and ironing things to better fit the Western tastes.
These critical perspectives are important, but to solely focus on them I feel is unproductive. Certainly, as someone who is merely a consumer of translated works, I do feel a bit of imposed guilt when reading these more critical essays. I found the essay discussing in greater technical detail of attempts to break through that Gaze to be equally noteworthy (e.g. Glover's and Roslan's essays), or ones that invite a more empowering look at how English works from Black American writers can resonate with caste based oppression with translation work in Indian Dalit poetry (from Maitreya).
The final entry summarizes many of the points sporadically discussed. Truly empowering translation brings to life incongruent works, and that "tolerance for incongruence is itself a value in both life and art". In other words, eat your veggies.
These critical perspectives are important, but to solely focus on them I feel is unproductive. Certainly, as someone who is merely a consumer of translated works, I do feel a bit of imposed guilt when reading these more critical essays. I found the essay discussing in greater technical detail of attempts to break through that Gaze to be equally noteworthy (e.g. Glover's and Roslan's essays), or ones that invite a more empowering look at how English works from Black American writers can resonate with caste based oppression with translation work in Indian Dalit poetry (from Maitreya).
The final entry summarizes many of the points sporadically discussed. Truly empowering translation brings to life incongruent works, and that "tolerance for incongruence is itself a value in both life and art". In other words, eat your veggies.
May 13, 2024
translation is neither inherently good or evil. it depends on how you perceive it, for instance some of the authors involved in the creation of this book used bridges as an allegory for translation:
are these bridges built as a way to form connections with other cultures and languages, establishing solidarity and understanding? or rather they’re meant to reach out to them merely as an act to continue rampage, to steal and decimate an entire culture?
these are the questions posed in this collection of essays, and it’s up to us as the readers to be fully aware that this act of consuming literature (and how we may comprehend its contents) can actually be either a continuation of colonialism or decolonizing a culture.
are these bridges built as a way to form connections with other cultures and languages, establishing solidarity and understanding? or rather they’re meant to reach out to them merely as an act to continue rampage, to steal and decimate an entire culture?
these are the questions posed in this collection of essays, and it’s up to us as the readers to be fully aware that this act of consuming literature (and how we may comprehend its contents) can actually be either a continuation of colonialism or decolonizing a culture.
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May 29, 2025Eye-opening anthology of essays looking at the practice of literary translation through a decolonial lens. The book isn’t super large, but admittedly it was difficult to motivate myself to finish it as the structure didn’t work for me. There was a concentration of accessible, more personal pieces at the beginning, with much of the second half being a chunk of long, academic, usually quite niche texts. Maybe dividing it into sub-sections would have been good. I appreciate the hard work that went into each one of course, and I recommend the book to translators and anyone who’s ever wondered about the ethics and power dynamics involved in translated lit.
March 10, 2024
Un par de ensayos de aquí me cambiaron la química del cerebro
Want to read
December 11, 2025Pre-read (11/12/2025): The way I CANNOT WAIT to get into this one. Thank you so much to Edelweiss, Kavita Bhanot and Jeremy Tiang for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
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