Steven G. Kellman

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.

The Translingual Imagination

Irving Malin

During its twenty-five years as a work-in-progress, William H. Gass's mammoth magnum opus became a legend of the literary world, the Sasquatch of contemporary American fiction. Along with an included interview with the author, the contributors to this study help situate Gass's challenging narrative within the remarkable career of a notable philosopher, essayist, and author of fiction. Contributors examine the book's quarrel with history, its engagement with issues of ethics and aesthetics, its representation of personality, its distinctive style and structure, its sophisticated metafictional texture, along with much else. What is going on in The Tunnel is not always immediately apparent, but the essays included in here tease out its secrets and concentrate our attention on details of an exasperating and exhilarating literary achievement.

Readings of Gass's Novel

Into The Tunnel

Intended for undergraduate and high school students with references primarily to book-length works.

An Annotated Bibliography

The Modern American Novel

Includes more than 360 interpretative essays on works of twentieth-century fiction published in the United States and Latin America.

Masterplots II.: Gre-Los

This is the first book-length study of one of the most prominent and prolific Latino academics, Ilan Stavans. He has written extensively on Latino culture, Jewish culture, dictionaries, immigration, language, Spanglish, soccer, translation, travel, selfies, and God. The Restless Ilan Stavans surveys his interests, achievements, and flaws while he is still in the midst of an extraordinarily productive career. A native of Mexico who became a U.S. citizen, he is an outsider to both the Chicano community that often resents him as an interloper and the American Jewish community that he, who grew up speaking Yiddish in Mexico City, often chides. The book examines his unlikely rise to prominence within the context of the spread of multiculturalism as a seminal principle within American culture. A self-proclaimed cosmopolitan who rejects borders, Stavans is both insider and outsider to the myriad of subjects he approaches.

Outside on the Inside

The Restless Ilan Stavans

Though it is difficult enough to write well in one?s native tongue, an extraordinary group of authors has written enduring poetry and prose in a second, third, or even fourth language. Switching Languages is the first anthology in which translingual authors from throughout the world examine their experiences writing in more than one language or in a language other than their primary one. Driven by factors as varied as migration, imperialism, a quest for verisimilitude, and a desire to assert artistic autonomy, translingualism has a long and brilliant history. ø In Switching Languages, Steven G. Kellman brings together several notable authors from the past one hundred years who discuss their personal translingual experiences and their take on a general phenomenon that has not received the attention it deserves. Contributors to the book include Chinua Achebe, Julia Alvarez, Mary Antin, Elias Canetti, Rosario Ferrä, Ha Jin, Salman Rushdie, Läopold Sädar Senghor, and Ilan Stavans. They offer vivid testimony to the challenges and achievements of literary translingualism.

Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft

Switching Languages

Fiction and Resistance

The Plague

Nimble Tongues is a collection of essays that continues Steven G. Kellman's work in the fertile field of translingualism, focusing on the phenomenon of switching languages. A series of investigations and reflections rather than a single thesis, the collection is perhaps more akin in its aims—if not accomplishment—to George Steiner’s Extraterritorial: Papers on Literature and the Language Revolution or Umberto Eco’s Travels in Hyperreality. Topics covered include the significance of translingualism; translation and its challenges; immigrant memoirs; the autobiographies that Ariel Dorfman wrote in English and Spanish, respectively; the only feature film ever made in Esperanto; Francesca Marciano, an Italian who writes in English; Jhumpa Lahiri, who has abandoned English for Italian; Ilan Stavans, a prominent translingual author and scholar; Hugo Hamilton, a writer who grew up torn among Irish, German, and English; Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, a Mexican who writes in English; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a multilingual text.

Studies in Literary Translingualism

Nimble Tongues

Masterplots II.: Plu-Tel

Draws on FBI files and interviews with family and friends to offer a portrait of the twentieth-century American literary icon, from his incest-marked childhood on the Jewish Lower East Side through his later years in New Mexico.

The Life of Henry Roth

Redemption

Masterplots II.: Lov-Pla

Natasha Lvovich

Though it might seem as modern as Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad, and Vladimir Nabokov, translingual writing - texts by authors using more than one language or a language other than their primary one - has an ancient pedigree. The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translingualism aims to provide a comprehensive overview of translingual literature in a wide variety of languages throughout the world, from ancient to modern times. The volume includes sections on: translingual genres - with chapters on memoir, poetry, fiction, drama, and cinema ancient, medieval, and modern translingualism global perspectives - chapters overseeing European, African, and Asian languages. Combining chapters from lead specialists in the field, this volume will be of interest to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in investigating the vibrant area of translingual literature. Attracting scholars from a variety of disciplines, this interdisciplinary and pioneering Handbook will advance current scholarship of the permutations of languages among authors throughout time.

Steven G. Kellman

Books

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