Can These Bones Live?

Can These Bones Live? views translation as a process at the core of all important cultural transactions, rather than a mere utilitarian means of converting the terms of one language into another. Brodzki considers a wide array of canonical and lesser-known fictional and autobiographical works by authors from North America, Europe, and Africa--including Italo Calvino, Jorge Semprún, Buchi Emecheta, and Philip Roth--that foreground translation as both narrative theme, figurative device, and textual strategy. The first part of the book examines translation as a mode of literary renewal by focusing on depictions of the translator as a figure in contemporary literature and by showing how the slave narrative genre can be read through the prism of intercultural translation. The second part of the book examines the role of translation in intergenerational transmission. By linking that process to remembrance and mourning in texts shaped by the experience of catastrophe, Brodzki demonstrates how translation ensures the afterlife of individual texts and cultural narratives across time and space.

Bella Brodzki is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-editor of Life Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography (1988).