What are You Trying to Say?: World Literature and the Frustration of Translation

At the heart of World Literature lies a tension between translation and the texts’ position in the world. This essay argues that whilst translation dichotomously offers a teleological understanding of texts, it fails to grapple with the deep cultural milieus that manufacture texts. Thus, whilst translation offers an awareness of the text, it further de-centralises the text and author. Translation further emphasises the power literary institutions have over texts written from the fringes. Finally, this essay grapples with the dialectic between texts drawing meaning from the centre, and texts that are written from the fringes acquiring meaning in the centre. This centre is an institutional figment, often seen to be the European literary canon. Keywords: Translation; World Literature; Identity; Alterity; Marginalisation