Desert Hawk Books

The Translingual Imagination

Steven G. Kellman

 

160 pages
6" x 9"
Hardback

Quantity:  $37.50 & S/H  

 

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 lingual 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.

"Monolingualism is a form of oppression.  Join the future, read this book."   Ilan Stavans, editor of Mutual Impressions: Writers from the Americas Reading One Another.

"This is a new territory, presented with a breathtakingly global scope." - Werner Sollors, author of Neither Black Nor White Yet Both.

Steven G. Kellman serves on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle.  He is Ashbel Smith Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, San Antonio, and the author or editor of numerous works, including the Self-Begetting Novel and Leslie Fiedler and American Culture.