Language Smugglers: Postlingual Literatures and Translation Within the Canadian Context

Des Rochers, Arianne/ Baer, Brian James (Editor)/ Woods, Michelle (Editor)

ISBN 10: 1501394150 / ISBN 13: 9781501394157

Published by Bloomsbury USA Academic, 2025

About this Item

256 pages. 8.51x5.51x1.00 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-1501394150

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Language Smugglers: Postlingual Literatures and Translation Within the Canadian Context
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Academic
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501394150
• ISBN 13: 9781501394157
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.3 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

Translation is commonly understood as the rendering of a text from one language to another – a border-crossing activity, where the border is a linguistic one. But what if the text one is translating is not written in “one language;” indeed, what if no text is ever written in a single language? In recent years, many books of fiction and poetry published in so-called Canada, especially by queer, racialized and Indigenous writers, have challenged the structural notions of linguistic autonomy and singularity that underlie not only the formation of the nation-state, but the bulk of Western translation theory and the field of comparative literature. Language Smugglers argues that the postnational cartographies of language found in minoritized Canadian literary works force a radical redefinition of the activity of translation altogether. Canada is revealed as an especially rich site for this study, with its official bilingualism and multiculturalism policies, its robust translation industry and practitioners, and the strong challenges to its national narratives and accompanying language politics presented by Indigenous people, the province of Québec, and high levels of immigration.

About the Authors

Arianne Des Rochers is Associate Professor of Translation at the Université de Moncton, Canada and holds the Canada Research Chair in Translation & Colonialism. They hold a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto. They have also published thirteen books in (co)translation, including Kate Briggs' This Little Art, Billy-Ray Belcourt's A History of My Brief Body, and Joshua Whitehead's Jonny Appleseed, which was shortlisted for a Governor General's Literary Award in 2020.

Brian James Baer is Professor of Russian and Translation Studies at Kent State University, USA. He is the author of Other Russias: Homosexuality and the Crisis of Post-Soviet Identity, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2011, and the editor or co-editor of five books, including Russian Writers on Translation. An Anthology (co-edited with Natalia Olshanskaya, 2013). He is the Founding Editor of the journal Translation and Interpreting Studies.

Michelle Woods is Associate Professor of English at The State University of New York, New Paltz, USA. Previously she was Director of the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland.