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Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft
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Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft Hardcover - 2003

by Steven G. Kellman (Editor)


From the publisher

Though it is difficult enough to write well in one's native tongue, an extraordinary group of authors has written enduring poetry and prose in a second, third, or even fourth language. Switching Languages is the first anthology in which translingual authors from throughout the world examine their experiences writing in more than one language or in a language other than their primary one. Driven by factors as varied as migration, imperialism, a quest for verisimilitude, and a desire to assert artistic autonomy, translingualism has a long and brilliant history. In Switching Languages, Steven G. Kellman brings together several notable authors from the past one hundred years who discuss their personal translingual experiences and their take on a general phenomenon that has not received the attention it deserves. Contributors to the book include Chinua Achebe, Julia Alvarez, Mary Antin, Elias Canetti, Rosario Ferr, Ha Jin, Salman Rushdie, Lopold Sdar Senghor, and Ilan Stavans. They offer vivid testimony to the challenges and achievements of literary translingualism.

Details

  • Title Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft
  • Author Steven G. Kellman (Editor)
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Pages 340
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of Nebraska Press
  • Date March 1, 2003
  • ISBN 9780803227477 / 0803227477
  • Weight 1.36 lbs (0.62 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.48 x 6.1 x 1.01 in (24.08 x 15.49 x 2.57 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Multilingualism and literature
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2002029133
  • Dewey Decimal Code 809

About the author

Steven G. Kellman is a professor of comparative literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is the author of The Translingual Imagination (Nebraska 2000) and The Self-Begetting Novel, and is the co-editor of UnderWords: Perspectives on Don DeLillo's Underworld.