"Translators ferry across the meaning, materiality, metaphysics and all the
magic that may be unknown in the mediums and conventions of their own tongue.
The pull of the strange, the foreign, and the alien are necessary for acts of
translation. It is this essential element of unknowingness that animates the
translator's curiosity and challenges her intellectual mettle and ethical
responsibility. Even when translators hail from -- or belong to -- the same
culture as the original author, the art relies on the oppositional traction of
difference. Through opposition and abrasion, a creative translation allows for
new meaning and nuance to emerge."
More in this thought-provoking essay that explores translation as resistance,
activism, and more.
