Living Translation

Living Translation is a collection of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's writings on translation, exploring how she has made it a central concern of the comparative humanities. It examines the act of translation from the ground up and at the political limit, including at border checkpoints, colonial pedagogy, resistance to monolingual regimes, and theory's edge. It also addresses her institution-building as director of comparative literature at the University of Iowa.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 15 October 2022
Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd

Living Translation is a comprehensive collection that brings together Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's extensive writings on translation for the first time. This remarkable volume offers a profound insight into the work of a distinguished thinker and writer, showcasing how Spivak has consistently made translation a central focus of comparative humanities throughout her illustrious career.

The journey begins with her landmark "Translators Preface" to Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology in 1976, a seminal work that set the stage for her exploration of translatability. Spivak's intellectual curiosity led her to delve into the very essence of translation, questioning its act from the ground up and at the political boundaries. She observed translation at play in border checkpoints, sites of colonial pedagogy, acts of resistance against monolingual regimes of national language, the borders of minor literature and schizo-analysis, the deficits of cultural debt and linguistic expropriation, and even at the edge of theory, where practical criticism gives way to theorizing in untranslatables.

Living Translation also delves into Spivak's institution-building as the director of comparative literature at the University of Iowa and her subsequent positions of employment. From this vantage point, Spivak emerges as a prominent translator-theoretist who has been exceptionally attentive to the processes of cognition in languages. She is acutely aware of the coproductivity of thinking, translating, and writing, recognizing the interdependence of these three activities in shaping our understanding of the world.

Through her meticulous analysis and thought-provoking insights, Spivak has established herself as a trailblazer in the field of translation studies. Living Translation serves as a testament to her enduring legacy, providing a valuable resource for scholars, translators, and anyone interested in the complexities of language, culture, and the transformative power of translation.

Weight: 450g
Dimension: 241 x 157 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781803091136