Translational Form in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Translational Form in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being "
Gullander-Drolet, Claire

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	902307
Doc. No	:	LA8rc6c7th
Title & Author	:	Translational Form in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being [Article]\ Gullander-Drolet, Claire
Date	:	2018
Title of Periodical	:	UC Santa Barbara
Abstract	:	Through a close reading of the tropes of interlingual and historical translation in Ruth Ozeki’s 2013 novel, A Tale for the Time Being , this essay argues that an attention to forms of translational work has important implications for transnational American studies, particularly in reorienting the field beyond its continental US and anglocentric bounds. Taking as its primary object of inquiry the “voluminous influx” of national, racial, and linguistic ‘otherness’ that David Palumbo-Liu describes as “a distinct feature of late twentieth century and early twenty first century age of globalization,” A Tale for the Time Being highlights translation’s central (and often acknowledged) role in shaping the ways in which that otherness is negotiated across geographical and temporal meridians. My reading of the novel’s translational form is twofold. I begin by considering the import of this intervention to the field of Asian American literary studies, focusing on how Ozeki mobilizes the formal elements of interlingual translation to push back against naturalizing conceptions of Asian / American identity. I then apply this translational framework to the divergent accounts of history in the novel, and argue that—by calling attention to the fissures and gaps in these narratives—Ozeki offers a new model of empathic reading, one that draws herself and her readers together through a logic of “not knowing.”