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At a time increasingly dominated by globalization, migration, and the clash between supranational and ultranational ideologies, the relationship between language and borders has become more complicated and, in many ways, more consequential than ever. This book shows how concepts of 'language' and 'multilingualism' look different when viewed from Belize, Lagos, or London, and asks how ideas about literature and literary form must be remade in a contemporary cultural marketplace that is both linguistically diverse and interconnected, even as it remains profoundly unequal. Bringing together scholars from the fields of literary studies, applied linguistics, publishing, and translation studies, the volume investigates how multilingual realities shape not only the practice of writing but also modes of literary and cultural production. Chapters explore examples of literary multilingualism and their relationship to the institutions of publishing, translation, and canon-formation. They consider how literature can be read in relation to other multilingual and translational forms of contemporary cultural circulation and what new interpretative strategies such developments demand. In tracing the multilingual currents running across a globalized world, this book will appeal to the growing international readership at the intersections of comparative literature, world literature, postcolonial studies, literary theory and criticism, and translation studies.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Rachael Gilmour and Tamar Steinitz
Chapter 2: Writer Speaks with Forked Tongue: Interlingual Predicaments
Steven G. Kellman
Chapter 3: The Worlds of Québec: On Post-Bilingualism, Multidirectionality, and Other Critical Detours
Christopher Larkosh
Chapter 4: Narrating the Polyphonic City: Translation and Identity in Translingual/Transcultural Writing
Rita Wilson
Chapter 5: "Ah'm the man ae a thoosand tongues": Multilingual Scottishness and its Limits
Rachael Gilmour
Chapter 6: Language Choices in Belizean Literature: The Politics of Language in Transnational Caribbean Space
Britta Schneider
Chapter 7: We Need New Names: Novel and Reading Publics as Conduits for Producing Contradictions
Carli Coetzee
Chapter 8: Translation as a Motor of Critique and Invention in Contemporary Literature: The Case of Xiaolu Guo
Fiona Doloughan
Chapter 9: Literary Adventures in Francophone Afropea: Léonora Miano and Music as a Language of Afro-Diasporic Subjectivity
Polo Belina Moji
Chapter 10: Translation and the Multilingual Text: Defining a Public
Moradewun Adejunmobi
Chapter 11: Afterword
Paul F. Bandia
Notes on Contributors
About the author
Rachael Gilmour is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
Tamar Steinitz is Lecturer in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
Summary
This book shows how concepts of ‘language’ and ‘multilingualism’ look different when viewed from varied locations, and asks how ideas about literature and literary form must be remade in a contemporary cultural marketplace that is both linguistically diverse and interconnected. Scholars of literary studies, applied linguistics, publishing, and t
