Against cultural reductionism. An anthology about decolonising translation

 On Monday, the 5th of this month, I went to an event at Foyles, the launch of the anthology Violent Phenomena. 21 Essays on Translation published by Tilted Axis. Kavita Bhanot (co-editor), Nariman Youssef and Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi (two of the contributors) were interviewed by Catherine Taylor and read excerpts of their contributions. The event was part of the new OK Translator series at Foyles that takes place every first Monday of the month.

It was an inspiring talk that made me think a bit more about my experiences as a translator from the (New) Greek and the problems of the marginalization of vital, rich literary and cultural traditions as far as they don't fit in the schemes of a literary market dominated by the current lingua franca and the approach of its representants that is characterized by domestication, simplification and all too often systematic hegemonial degradation.

These are not only problems of the realms of cultural production. They signify a wider historical process truly visible in everyday life and the educational sphere as well as in the more refined, genuinely creative branches of society, like literature and literary translation.

I purchased the book, and after reading four essays I already found a lot of useful insights and statements that can inspire and support the necessary discussion about decolonising the wider sphere of cultural production. The following quote by David Gramling (in Lucia Collischonn's essay) hints at the immensity of the problematic historical process we are witnessing. He speaks of indigenous people in the colonies "gradually de-competenced through a multilingual process of monolingualisation". This names precisely the cultural reductionism we are up against especially as bilingual or multilingual writers, creators, artists who cannot and will not deny the richness of traditions that have been marginalized for no other reasons than short-term political purposes and short-sighted, narrow-minded commercial calculations.

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