The Translingual Imagination

by Steven G. Kellman

It is difficult to write well even in one language. Yet a rich body of translingual literature–by authors who write in more than one language or in a language other than their primary one—exists. The Translingual Imagination is a pioneering study of the phenomenon, which is as ancient as the use of Arabic, Latin, Mandarin, Persian, and Sanskrit as linguae francae. Colonialism, war, mobility, and the aesthetics of alienation have combined to create a modern translingual canon. Opening with an overview of this vast subject, Steven G. Kellman then looks at the differences between ambilinguals—those who write authoritatively in more than one language—and monolingual translinguals—those who write in only one language but not their native one. Kellman offers compelling analyses of the translingual situations of African and Jewish authors and of achievements by authors as varied as Antin, Beckett, Begley, Coetzee, Conrad, Hoffman, Nabokov, and Sayles. While separate studies of individual translingual authors have long been available, this is the first in-depth study of the general phenomenon of translingual literature.

134 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[clarachen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I imagine this us what stemmy people (biologists, astrophysicists…) feel like when they read something very old: the History bit is nice, but fuck does it hurt

This book practically created single-handedly my area of research. Yes, it is a book from 2000. It’s that first pioneer work that’s actually kinda bad when you think about it but has merit because it was the first…

did it give me interesting quotes for my dissertation? Absolutely.

in a book about TRANSLINGUAL AUTHORS (novelists, poets, playwrights) he spends almost 3 essays talking about… not that. He talks about films, Jewish people in the US… but it’s like he forgot the word “translingual” for a hot second. Or like he couldn’t think of enough things to put into the book so he just pulled some random essays he’d written but that wouldn’t get published. The volume is barely 100 pages. He couldn’t have been taking this too seriously

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun and well-written little treatise! Kellman is widely read and well-versed in his subject which, considering its breadth, wouldn't come easy to most. Granted, a few chapters do go on, and the argument's intense segmentation jars against the writing's fluidity. On the whole, however, this is an enlightening exercise in translingual (and thus, by extension, transnational and transcultural) criticism and theory.