Speaking in Tongues

The cerebral, far-reaching latest from Nobel winner Coetzee (The Pole) takes the form of an “amicable but intense” correspondence with Dimópulos (Imminence), a regular translator of his work into Spanish. The two interlocutors draw on their respective backgrounds (both are novelists and translators; Coetzee is also a linguist) to explore language and translation as a political and cultural force. In one chapter, the authors discuss the current feminist push to remove gendered language from French and Spanish; in another, they interrogate the role of the translator when translating a piece of writing that uses “problematic language.” A scintillating chapter on “The Mother Tongue” explores the unique experiences of writers like Coetzee who grew up speaking one language (“the vernacular of their intimate lives”), but ended up writing in a globally “dominant tongue” like English. Coetzee and Dimópulos engage comfortably and earnestly, imbuing the erudite conversation with a natural rhythm—references to luminaries like Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida flow easily. Their wandering dialogue is littered with pearls of insight: “sometimes in the history of... a language... the culture becomes aware of a transformation within itself made possible through translation”; “literary writing amounts to writing in one’s own language as if foreign.” It’s a rewarding rumination on translation, language, and power. (May)