From Language to Language - by Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Informed by his own multicultural background--African, French, and American--Souleymane Bachir Diagne interrogates the practice of translation in this thoughtful text. Although translation often produces a relationship of profound inequality between dominant and dominated languages, it can also be a source of dialogue and exchange, including in situations of asymmetry, particularly regarding colonialism, where the interpreter becomes a true cultural mediator.

To praise translation, "the language of languages," is to celebrate its plurality and equality, because to translate is to give hospitality in one language to what has been thought in another. It is to create reciprocity, a shared sense of humanity, and to imagine a positive version of the Tower of Babel.

Review Quotes

"It perfectly articulates all of the answers to the questions one asks oneself when in contact with modern, postmodern, and contemporary Western arts, as well as non-Western traditional arts." --New York Times Book Review

"Diagne has further entrenched his reputation as a clear-sighted thinker." --African Studies Review

About the Author

Dylan Temel is a translator and English instructor at the University of Nanterre. He currently lives in Paris.