edited by Nuzhat Abbas
ISBN: 978-1-775-2567-4-8
Essays | Translation | Feminism | Decolonial
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What are the histories, constraints, and possibilities of language in relation to bodies, origins, land, colonialism, gender, war, displacement, desire, and migration?
Moving across genres, memories, belongings, and borders, these luminous texts by poets, writers, and translators invite us to consider translation as a form of ethical and political love – one that requires attentive regard of an other – and a making and unmaking of self.
"Translation, here, is decolonial feminist work."
– from the Foreword by Françoise Vergès
REVIEWS & COMMENTS
River In an Ocean is a sublime and urgent book that illuminates the heart of the politics of literary translation, makes its inroads and inner workings graspable, and unflinchingly discloses its human face through vivid testimonies which are scholarly and speculative, personal and political—all in varied lenses from human geography to memoir, from cultural poetics to the personal essay, from historical linguistics to reportage.
– Alton Melvar M. Dapanas, The Shanghai Literary Review
Whether in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Kashmir, Sudan, Turtle Island, or beyond, understanding the relationships between land, language, and people is necessary to embody decolonial feminism. The authors in these essays do so, as Verges proclaims in her foreword, because their practice goes beyond translation as a process of equivalency into translation as an act of reciprocity. In a world that often feels hopeless, reading River in an Ocean feels empowering, as though there is a revolution brimming from the pages.
– Manahil Bandukwala, Temz Review
River in an Ocean is not an ordinary book on translation... The essays in this book are not what we normally find when reading about translation and translation theory. This river flows into a different ocean, the ocean of forbidden and forgotten concepts, of immigration, diaspora, displacement, lost identities, and assumed identities that we translators do not openly talk about. These essays are very personal stories about a collective memory with which every reader, in part, can identify and resonate.
– AJ Javaheri, Mizna
... a unique anthology that attempts to make sense of personal and political trauma and offers the possibilities of a new approach to translation not based on Eurocentric translation theories. Seen through a feminist, decolonial lens, translation can be understood as un-settlement, as landscape, as memory, as self-discovery and even survival, but, most importantly, as a path that can lead to collective healing.
– Nancy Naomi Carlson, World Literature Today
River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation... is an archive of such intimate offerings and chilling provocations from practising translators, writers, and thinkers of language — who all ask that we rethink our relationship with the language we use, the language we’ve inherited, and the ones we might have disavowed.
– Chandrica Basu, Wasafiri
The individual pieces in River in an Ocean form a much greater whole, a picture of what it means to be a Global Majority translator. There are common themes: colonial damage, language loss, a certain level of disregard and even contempt from those in the position of dominance (language and cultural dominance being interchangeable), and also a deep yearning—a stance as advocates, even—in those working in translation for the preservation of (minority) languages and culture. Across the collection, each translator’s attention to and love for language are clear.
– Jacqueline Nyathi, Harare Review
…to listen to the voices of translators from the Global South for whom translation is inextricable from essential questions of identity, history, land, dislocation, gender and sexuality offers an invaluable opportunity to expand one’s understanding of what translation can be. Here, crossing linguistic borders is not simply a possible professional endeavour, it is a way of being in the world, of understanding where one comes from and how one belongs.
– Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts
...these pages are surprisingly accessible, transcending theory and offering compelling stories grounded in real life. As Vergès puts it, the collection foregrounds the authors’ “personal voices” and presents “the work of translation in all its complexity, and the frustrations, joys, and emotions it provides. True to that informal approach, River in an Ocean flows like an extended craft talk, a lively roundtable, or a dynamic dinner party. It’s not just for translators; it’s for everyone.
– Claire Foster, Literary Review of Canada
When a feminist translator responds to her calling, the world is enlarged and a better place. This book is exquisite in its scope, and its well-thought out approach to translation.
– Dr. Wangui wa Goro, activist-intellectual and translator of Véronique Tadjo & Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
These politically charged essays offer a much-needed nourishing approach to translation, bringing acute attention to the processual in translation. For anyone interested in the power and politics of translation in our world today, this collection is a must-read
– Dr. Dima Ayoub, author, Paratext and Power: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation
Examining histories of linguistic repression and contempt, their words reflect on decolonial and feminist practices in translation while celebrating the beauty and the possibility of language, its ecstasies and its efflorescence, and what it means to live between tongues.
– Dr. Mehr Farooqi, author, Ghalib: A Wilderness at my Doorstep