Can These Bones Live?: Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory - Paperback

by Bella Brodzki (Author)

Can These Bones Live? views translation as a mode of literary invigoration--indeed, as a process at the core of all important cultural transactions--rather than a mere utilitarian means of converting the terms of one language into another. Brodzki considers a wide array of canonical and lesser-known fictional and autobiographical works by authors from North America, Europe, and Africa--including Philip Roth, Italo Calvino, Jorge Semprun, and Buchi Emecheta--that foreground translation as narrative theme, figurative device, and textual strategy. The book emphasizes translation's critical role in literary history by examining depictions of the translator figure in contemporary literature and by showing that reading slave narratives through the prism of intercultural translation expands and enriches our understanding of both slavery and genre. At its center, the book argues for translation's crucial role in processes of intergenerational transmission. By linking such processes particularly to mourning and memorialization in texts shaped by the experience of catastrophe, Brodzki demonstrates how translation ensures the afterlife of individual texts and cultural narratives across time and space.

Front Jacket

Can These Bones Live? views translation as a process at the core of all important cultural transactions, rather than a mere utilitarian means of converting the terms of one language into another. Brodzki considers a wide array of canonical and lesser-known fictional and autobiographical works by authors from North America, Europe, and Africa--including Italo Calvino, Jorge Semprun, Buchi Emecheta, and Philip Roth--that foreground translation as both narrative theme, figurative device, and textual strategy. The first part of the book examines translation as a mode of literary renewal by focusing on depictions of the translator as a figure in contemporary literature and by showing how the slave narrative genre can be read through the prism of intercultural translation. The second part of the book examines the role of translation in intergenerational transmission. By linking that process to remembrance and mourning in texts shaped by the experience of catastrophe, Brodzki demonstrates how translation ensures the afterlife of individual texts and cultural narratives across time and space.

Back Jacket

Bella Brodzki's compelling and wide-ranging book represents an important contribution to current work on translation theory. With illuminating discussions of creatively chosen examples ranging from slave narratives and postcolonial novels to holocaust survivor stories, Brodzki shows translation to be closely associated with questions of trauma, cultural memory, and survival.
--David Damrosch, Columbia University

Author Biography

Bella Brodzki is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-editor of Life Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography (1988).