Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kellman, Steven G

Titel

The Translingual Imagination

Ort / Verlag

University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Link zum Volltext

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Although it is difficult to write well even in one language, 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. This book is a study of the phenomenon, which is as ancient as the use of Arabic, Latin, Mandarin, Persian, and Sanskrit as "lingua franca." The book notes that colonialism, war, mobility, and the aesthetics of alienation have combined to create a modern translingual canon. Opening with an overview of the subject, the book 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. It offers analyses of the translingual situations of African and Jewish authors and of authors as varied as Beckett, Coetzee, Conrad, and Nabokov. Following the Preface, chapters in the book are: (1) "Translingualism and the Literary Imagination"; (2) "Pourquoi Translingual?"; (3) "Translingual Africa"; (4) "Coetzee Reads Beckett"; (5) "Nabokov and the Psychomorphology of Zemblan"; (6) "Eva Hoffman Lost in the Promised Land"; (7) "Begley Joins the Firm"; and (8) "Sayles Goes Spanish." The book concludes with an Epilogue and a roster of translingual authors. (Contains a list of works cited.) (NKA)