How Do We Translate Contested or Un(der)valued Spaces?, Part 1

Contested spaces require a negotiation between catastrophes, with armed conflicts arising from the personal expressed in the political, notably through language. This roundtable discusses issues particularly relevant to translating texts from such spaces.

What ethical practices can we translators aspire to when translating the literature of marginalized, or of traumatized populations, so as not to further devalue them? How can the trajectory of translation include what is not valued in the mainstream? What additional work must we do in bringing a potentially sensitive or divisive text into another language (research, framing, supporting/protecting the author)? The roundtable welcomes engagement by translators of texts by stateless, queer, disabled, unhoused, and other vulnerable persons. Format: We will require all participants to read two short essays and an interview in preparation for the roundtable, and encourage participants to bring in short excerpts of their own work to share during the discussion.

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Organizers

Nedra Rodrigo is the founder of the Tamil Studies Symposium at York University, and of the bilingual, inclusive, Tamil-centric art space The Tam Fam Lit Jam. She is a published poet, translator, academic, community capacity builder, and curator of Tamil cultural events. Meena Kandasamy is a poet, fiction writer, translator, and activist who was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Her op-ed/essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The White Review, Guernica, and Al Jazeera, among other places. Nimmi Gowrinathan is the Founder and Director of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative, a global study examining the impact of rape on women’s political identities in extremist movements, and a Visiting Research Professor, teaching courses on Gender and Violence at the Colin Powell Center for Global and Civic Leadership at City College New York.

Participants

Sawad Hussain is an award-winning translator from Arabic-English, who focuses on bringing narratives from the African continent to wider audiences. Ghada Mourad is a lecturer of French and Francophone literature and a literary translator translating from Arabic and French. Her translations appeared in various literary journals including Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, Two Lines, The Common, Pen English, and Jadaliyya.