The Translingual Imagination

Front Cover
University of Nebraska Press, 2000 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 134 pages
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 Mary Antin, Samuel Beckett, Louis Begley, J. M. Coetzee, Joseph Conrad, Eva Hoffman, Vladimir Nabokov, and John 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.

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Contents

Translingualism and the Literary Imagination
1
Nabokov and the Psychomorphology of Zemblan
63
A Roster of Translingual Authors
117
Copyright

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The Translingual Imagination
Steven G. Kellman
Limited preview - 2000

Common terms and phrases

abandoned adopted African Afrikaans American Antin Arabic aware Beckett become begins Begley born called century characters choice claims Coetzee composed Conrad create critic culture English entirely Essays European experience explains express fact fiction foreign French Fuentes German guage Hebrew Hoffman identity imagination immigrant important Italian Italy Jewish John José-Maria de Heredia Joseph Kinbote language later Latin learned least less limits linguistic literary literature lives Lost master medium merely mother mother tongue move Nabokov narrator native never Ngugi wa Thiong'o notes novel offers Pale Fire poems poet poetry Polish possible Promised Land prose published reader Russian Samuel Sayles says seems South Spanish speak spoken story style tells texts thing thought tion tongue translation translingual turn United University verbal write written wrote Yiddish York Zemblan

References to this book

About the author (2000)

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."

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Translingual Imagination
AuthorSteven G. Kellman
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Nebraska Press, 2000
Original fromthe University of Michigan
DigitizedMay 20, 2008
ISBN0803227450, 9780803227453
Length134 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Sociolinguistics
Literary Criticism / General
Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory
  
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