Interventions

International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

ISSN: 1369-801X (Print) 1469-929X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riij20

Of Masters and Tools

Mara Reimndez
To cite this article: Mara Reimndez (2013) Of Masters and Tools, Interventions, 15:3, 418-434,
DOI: 10.1080/1369801X.2013.824756
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2013.824756

Published online: 30 Sep 2013.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 196

View related articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=riij20
Download by: [Brought to you by Unisa Library]

Date: 23 July 2016, At: 03:30

OF MASTERS AND TOOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Translating Across Non-Hegemonic Languages

Mara Reimondez
Independent scholar

................ Although translation has been a key topic in reflections around the postcolonial,
feminism
Galician
postcolonial
Tamil
translation

................

the issue of power and position of languages has eluded much of the discussion in
English-speaking Academia. For speakers of non-hegemonic languages, such as
Galician, the meaning of translation and the power struggles to speak as
subalterns have great political implications. Such implications become all the
more visible when peripheries try to communicate with each other. While it is
precisely from the position of a periphery that new emancipatory projects may be
developed to change power-centre asymmetries through cross-cultural communication, there is also the very practical but also highly political conundrum of the
impossibility of having translators (knowing the languages and knowing how to
translate) in all possible language combinations. This essay therefore analyses the
theoretical underpinnings of postcolonial theory and translation from the point of
view of a non-hegemonic language and literary system, the Galician one, and the
practical implications of such considerations through a practical example. It
discusses the translation of Tamil feminist writer Salmas The Hour Past Midnight
(Irandaan Jaamangalain Kathai) into Galician (Despois da medianoite) through
the mediation of English. What differences are there in using an intermediary
(hegemonic) language for the translator? What are the requirements for such a
feminist text from an apparently distant cultural background to speak to Galician

.....................................................................................
interventions, 2013
Vol. 15, No. 3, 418
434, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2013.824756
#

2013 Taylor & Francis

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Mar a Reimo ndez

419
........................

readers? What position have I taken, as a feminist translator, to use the language
of one colonizer to rewrite Salma into Galician?

1 All translations by
the author.

Translating could be defined, in principle, as an unequal cultural dialogue

between different language systems.1 (Gonzalez-Millan 1995: 63)

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Some Reflections on Masters and Tools

2 This point is clear

if we look at a
reference work such
as Venuti (2000).
These topics appear
only in four of the
reference articles
collected in the book
(those by
Chamberlain,
Spivak, Appiah and
Brisset.) The original
edition of over five
hundred pages
included only four
articles by women.

In The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House Audre
Lorde claims that it is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the
oppressed occupied with the masters concerns (Lorde 2007: 113). This
statement could easily be used to describe a large share of contributions to the
field of translation studies. Before postcolonial and feminist theories started
focusing on translation as a key power field, theoretical debates seemed to
show a large number of blind spots regarding the position of cultures,
languages and translators themselves in such a complex interaction.2 For a
long time there were fixed notions of originals, translations (ranking first and
second in status), languages, fidelity and equivalence. However, these borders
have been stretched in recent times and new voices have managed to unmask
how, not unlike nation-states, such borders are fictional limits devised by
power structures in urgent need of revision. An example of what this process
may mean and the theoretical implications underpinning it will be presented
in a discussion of the translation of Tamil feminist author Salmas The Hour
Past Midnight (Irandaan Jaamangalain Kathai) into Galician (Despois da
medianoite) through the mediation of English.
Interactions between postcolonialism and translation studies have gone
both ways. On the one hand, postcolonial studies, in alliance with Marxism
and feminism, has contributed with a theoretical framework to a better
understanding of the creation of centres and peripheries, of masters and tools
(e.g. Robinson 1997; Tymoczko and Gentzler 2002). Among the key
instruments used by these theories is the concept of hegemony, which was
initially proposed by Gramsci and later developed by theoreticians such as
Spivak (1988) and the Subaltern Studies group of historians (e.g. Chaturvedi
2000). Furthermore, postcolonial reflections on the construction of power,
such as Saids (1979) contributions to the construction of the Oriental other,
Bhabhas (1994) insights into positionality, and Spivaks (1988, 1990, 1992)
on the matter of the voice of the subaltern and the role of the postcolonial critic
in translating subjects were also relevant for translation studies as a whole.
Translation studies, on the other hand, have contributed to the development of critical thinking about the construction of knowledge through
languages. The contributions of Tymoczko and Gentzler (2002) have
unmasked the fiction of a universal translation theory
which has been

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................

3 There are of
course notable
exceptions to this
rule, including
Ashcroft et al. (1989)
and Spivak (1995).
See also Young
(2001).

420

articulated, of course, mainly in English. There has also been a large body of
studies looking into the translation flows across languages and how unequal
they prove to be. Even before them, Lawrence Venutis contributions helped
unmask the imperial strategies in the translation act itself, in his case from
the point of view of an imperial language (domestication versus foreignization). This matter was later widely discussed and revised from different
positions (see the contributions in Tymoczko 2010), and Trivedi (2005) and
Robinson (1997) also provided key contributions to the field.
These interactions have shown over and over how hegemonic languages
live the dream of a tunnel vision as they see the world through the typically
monolingual experience of the centre. From this perspective, translations, as
well as postcolonial subjects, are seen as a disturbance that helps remember
that there is something out there
other voices, other experiences, other
points of view
which challenge the centre in so many ways.
The sense of disturbance that translation brings about for imperial
constructions of self and other aptly explains why, even in postcolonial
studies, the term englishes has been used as a useful alibi with which to
ignore that wherever englishes are spoken there are also other languages
struggling to survive. The words of Ngugi Wa Thiongo explain how the
imposition of a colonial language was key for the colonial project: To
control a peoples culture is to control their tools of self-definition in
relationship to others . . . The domination of a peoples language by the
language of the colonizing nations was crucial to the domination of the
mental universe of the colonized (wa Thiongo 2006: 16).
Much scholarship in postcolonial studies, with few exceptions, has too
often left the language and power question out of the equation. Translation
studies have brought it back into the limelight, as translation can only happen
at the interstices of languages and in contexts of language contact.3 That is
why issues of language hegemony must be included in a postcolonial
understanding of translation. If hegemony can be described as the construction of consent and persuasion (Ives and Lacorte 2010: 23), then we need to
revisit the discourse according to which only certain languages are studied or
considered suitable for communicating and developing knowledge. In the
current scenario, English (englishes) has become the accepted language of
power and knowledge. As Sherry Simon clearly explains: Transnational
culture studies has tended to operate entirely in English, at the expense of a
concern for the diversity of languages in the world (Simon 2000: 12). This
logic of useful and useless (or limited use) languages does not only involve
English, but also all the other hegemonic languages in the world. Hegemony is
always a matter of positionality, as the case of French in Quebec clearly
shows. (French is the hegemonic language in France and therefore behaves as
such for speakers of any of the other languages present in France; however, in
Canada, it is English that is the hegemonic language and French becomes a

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Mar a Reimo ndez

421
........................

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

non-hegemonic language in this context.) That is the reason why I refuse the
term minority languages to refer to languages such as Galician, as it seems to
put an emphasis on size rather than political power. The example I shall
present in the second part of this essay will highlight how, for Galician,
English is not the most oppressive hegemonic language, but Spanish. At this
point let us simply highlight that these dynamics have to be considered in any
thorough analysis of translation traffic.
Studies surrounding translation and transcultural movements have too
often focused on traffic between peripheries and their centres, while rarely
looking into other types of relationships, as Simon once again emphasizes:
We increasingly understand cultural interaction not merely as a form of exchange
but of production. Translation then is not simply a mode of linguistic transfer but a
translingual practice, a writing across languages. The economy of exchange gives
way to a circulation governed by a complex decentered interactiveness (Buell 1994:
337), which permits new kinds of conversations and new speaking positions.
Borders do not simply divide and exclude, but allow the possibility to interact and
construct (341). The double vision of translators is continuously redefining creative
practices
and changing the terms of cultural transmission. (Simon 2000: 28)

If translation is to change the terms of cultural transmission then something

has to change in the ways languages are used in translation discussions from
a postcolonial point of view. Despite all the developments and interactions
mentioned above, one can still be shocked to read statements such as the
following by scholars of postcolonial translation:
In postcolonial contexts the writer has the choice to write either in a local
vernacular and thus remain confined to a small literary space or in a global
language accessible to a much broader readership. Faced with this dilemma,
African writers are forced to write in an adopted language imported through
colonization, yet this allows them to champion the cause of their people on the
world stage. (Banda 2009: 15
16)

4 According to
renowned Canadian
Anglophone writer
Erin Moure, the
number of books she
sells in English in
Canada does not
exceed those of any
well-known Galician
poet in Galician.

As we can see, there are still too many voices in the field grading languages in
terms of size. Global languages sometimes forget that their actual
readership may not be as large as they think.4 The importance of a language
has to be measured by its relevance to its speakers and not by their actual
numbers. Accepting this logic means accepting the discriminatory logic of
empire. Besides, languages are never just languages. As Meylaerts claims:
any debate on equal opportunities from a social, economic, political point
of view, is automatically a debate on language and translation (Meylaerts
2007: 21). As a matter of fact, all literary spaces are equally small as long as
they remain untranslated.

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................

422

Of course, the postcolonial critic may have to face new challenges when
trying to see the world beyond the hegemonic language of the times, because
the voices of the Other may not be readily accessible and consumable. An
Other who writes in a non-hegemonic language cannot be digested by the
centre, his or her foreignness cannot be simply reduced to a series of foreign
words in an otherwise fully intelligible text, already tailored to the
knowledge base and expectations of an avid centre. Thus, while some try
to translate themselves into the language of the colonizer, others will try to
keep their own languages and cultures alive by writing in them and getting
them translated for others to listen to. As Harish Trivedi claims:
There is an urgent need perhaps to protect and preserve some little space in this
postcolonial
postmodernist world, where newness constantly enters through
cultural translation, for some old and old-fashioned literary translation. For, if
literary translation is allowed to wither away in the age of cultural translation, we
shall sooner than later end up with a wholly translated, monolingual, monocultural, monolithic world. And then those of us who are still bilingual and who
are still untranslated from our own native ground to an alien shore, will
nevertheless have been translated against our will and against our grain. (Trivedi
2005: 259)

This debate has sometimes been mistakenly led down the path of
authenticity, but in fact the debate on whether to use hegemonic or nonhegemonic language in literature is a debate about power and voice, about
those who are allowed to speak because they do so within the frame of
empire (however disturbing these statements are for the limits of the imperial
language itself) and those who are speaking and never heard because their
voices could actually not only disturb but also explode the idea of the centre
itself. The debate is also a debate about the economics of literature (the
argument being that if one uses the hegemonic language, one reaches a wider
audience
a claim that can be translated as a promise of more fame and
fortune), and, of course, about a resistance of empire to accept the
consequences of its own doings. For in the languages of the non-hegemonic
other, wars on terror become just invasions, discoveries turn into genocide
and the formation of nation-states into the development of oppression.
The terms used by the centre thus glorify events and actions that not only
hide their collateral damage, but also most importantly the implications
such terms have for the living conditions of thousands of human beings all
over the world. As Antonio Sousa Ribeiro rightly claims: In fact, a potential
definition of hegemonic globalization is that of a homogenization process
without translation, which corresponds, at a different level, to the process
through which a hegemonic country is in a position to foster its own localism
by masking it as the universal or global (Ribeiro 2006: 2).

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Mar a Reimo ndez

423
........................

Perhaps that is why translation becomes so crucial for those of us (the

majority of the worlds population, one has often to remember) who are the
non-hegemonic other. The concerns of speakers of non-hegemonic languages
go well beyond mere communication, as the critical inscription of our
voices on hegemonic language may disturb the fantasy of a centre. Such an
inscription demands translators who are acutely aware of power inequalities
and their changing positions in the translation process.
However, there are other more important elements at stake here, as Lorde
rightly claimed in the quotation that opens this section. Non-hegemonic
subjects need to leave the centre aside and start developing their own strategies
together. This can only be done if we stop looking at the centre for reference
and start looking at each other, and especially listening to each other anew.
The limited capacity of literary systems to have translators of all languages
into all languages (a practical and political shortcoming) may mean that
hegemonic languages have to play the role of a tool. Their position of power
is therefore lost to serve the practical needs of the Other; of course, in such
exchanges, much is at stake and translators have to be aware of the risks of
subverting this position. This is what I will show in the following case study,
in which one masters tool is used to dismantle another masters house.

Translation in a Non-Hegemonic Literary System: The Galician Case

5 For an Englishlanguage study of the

Cantigas, see
OCallaghan (1998).

For literary systems whose languages are endangered, translation has always
been a key stepping stone. Even-Zohars systems theory has tried to shed
some light on this matter, but if we take a look at Galician reflections on
translation (Dasilva 2003), we can see that they go back a long way. The
importance of translation is key for languages that have been excluded from
representation. Galician was expelled from the circles of power from the
fourteenth century until the eighteenth century (and therefore not written for
four centuries), and was explicitly forbidden during Francos dictatorship
(1939
75). Even at present, reduced readership and lack of institutional
support make the survival of the language and its literature a constant
struggle that is closely linked with visibility and power.
Galician developed as a language with all the other Roman languages of
the Iberian peninsula and was originally the same language as Portuguese
until the fourteenth century. Both languages are still very close, although,
due to Spanish state policies on language, learning Portuguese at school is
still impossible for people who live two kilometres away from Portugal.
Galician was also the first literary language of the Iberian peninsula, and
even the Castilian King Alfons X wrote his famous Cantigas in this
language.5 However, after four centuries of prohibition, with the Romantic
movement spreading across Europe, Galician was once again used as a

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................

424

literary language by the writers of the Rexurdimento, Rosala de Castro, a

radical feminist, being the most remarkable among them. In later years,
especially at the beginning of the twentieth century, Galician intellectuals
and writers started paying due attention to translation. The groups
Irmandades da Fala and Xeracion Nos were keen to show that Galician
could be used not only for poetry but also for all spheres of life and cultural
production, and they became active translators of mainly European
literature. The Spanish Civil War and ensuing dictatorship brought all these
efforts to a halt and many Galician authors were either killed or forced into
exile. Galician literature survived in books published in Latin America until
the 1950s, when the dictatorship allowed some timid manifestations in
Galician once again, mainly of a folkloric character, and the publishing
house Galaxia was founded in 1950.
It is only after democracy was reinstated in Spain after 1975 that the
Galician language and literary system reached some stability. Although the
situation of the language is still very fragile to this day, Galician literature
has visibly flourished in the past three decades and has been recognized with
national and international awards. In the democratic period, translation
becomes a key element for the development of a fully-fledged literary system:
The Galician literary system was in need, and still is, of the support of the classics
and of some concrete thematic areas, both in local production and through
translation, in order to sustain its feeble structure. That is why the text selection of
the time was initially led by the pressures of literary nationalism and by the urgent
need to establish a language standard to provide some stability to the system. (Luna
2003: 52)

6 A recent example
of such attitudes
occurred in the
Spanish version of Big
Brother. A Galician
contestant claimed
that if a man spoke to
her in Galician it was
already a turn off,
for Galician speakers
were brutes and
Galician was almost
non-existent. See
http://www.laopinioncoruna.es/sociedad/2011/02/15/corunesa-gran-hermanolengua/467682.html.

This role has to be understood in a context in which Galician is not only

threatened in terms of the presence of Spanish and its publishing machinery,
but also in terms of the imaginary it works with. Spanish is the language of
culture and prestige (that is why translations of classics were also undertaken), while Galician is still seen as the language of the peasants.6 In such a
framework of disadvantage, Galician publishers and the literary system
always have to be more inventive, more creative and offer something else in
order to reach and enlarge their potential readership.
In the years following the approval of the Lei de Normalizacion
Lingustica (Language Promotion Act) of 1983, the main concerns of all
actors involved were to develop a standard for the Galician language that
could be taught in schools and also the necessary materials and means for the
population to have the right to use the language in all situations. Many
documents had to be translated from Spanish into Galician, especially those
of an administrative nature, but this kind of translation was seen as
detrimental for the status of the language. The fact that, according to the

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Mar a Reimo ndez

7 Two of the most

important
international
childrens literature
publishers,
Kalandraka and
Oqo, are Galician
and Galician authors
have received wide
international
acclaim, including
the Premio
Iberoamericano SM
to Agustn Fernandez
Paz and the White
Ravens to several
Galician authors.

425
........................

2001 language census, 99.16 per cent of the population understands

Galician, emphasized that the translation of these documents from Spanish
into Galician and vice versa could only be interpreted as a sign of the social
malfunction of the Language Promotion Act.
With regard to literary texts, translation was key for the development of
childrens literature, as during these first years the translation of classical texts
such as Jack Londons Call of the Wild, Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland
and some of Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes novels helped provide the
foundations for a booming childrens literature in Galician, which has
nowadays become a significant landmark for our literary system.7 The need
to have access to the classics, also as a way to contribute prestige to the
language, moved outside the field of childrens literature. Some decades later,
the Asociacion de Tradutores Galegos launched BIVIR (www.bivir.com), the
Virtual Library where translations of classics could be found. The definition
of classic had of course not been analysed in terms of postcolonial and
feminist standards, which meant that hardly any female writers had been
translated and no works from non-hegemonic languages either.
The publishing sector failed to develop a clear translation policy. Individual
translators (sometimes themselves authors in the Galician language) continued to play a key role in the development of a translated corpus. The only
clear policy developed was that work could not be translated into Spanish, as
Galician publishers could not deploy the same marketing strategies as large
Spanish publishing groups. Besides, the situation of the language and the fact
that a large share of the population (all those who had finished schooling
before 1983), despite being Galician speakers, had difficulties in reading
Galician, made this a precondition for translations that was only disregarded
in the 2000s with the translation of bestsellers such as the Harry Potter series
or some Dan Brown novels. This lack of a proper translation policy and the
pressure of Spanish translations can be read as a competitive advantage, as
Cronin points out: it is possible to argue that the periphery can afford to be
more aesthetically adventurous than the centre in its choice of authors and
texts to be translated (Cronin 2000: 48).
The situation changed only slightly between 2005 and 2009 when a
Galician government formed by a coalition of socialists and nationalists
included translation as one of its cultural priorities, in terms of works
translated into Galician and vice versa. Publishing houses tried to increase
the number of translated works into Galician, although most of these were
written by men in hegemonic languages. Even the publisher Rinoceronte,
who claimed to have a will to introduce peripheral voices into the Galician
system, hardly escaped this trend in terms of languages (all of them
European, except for Japanese, an imperial language in its own geographic
area), let alone its practices in terms of a feminist approach to translation
(Reimondez 2009).

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................

426

If we look specifically at feminist and/or postcolonial authors, in 2011 the

number of postcolonial works translated into Galician in general and from
English in particular was minimal, although most of them were by women.
They included my own translations of Rachna Maras Of Customs and Excise
(1998), Ern Moures Teatrinos (2007) and Mary Princes The Life of a West
Indian Slave (2009). Other postcolonial translations were Manjula Padmanabhans Lights Out by Anta Mato Bouzas (2006) and Jean Rhyss Wide
Sargasso Sea by Manuel Forcadela (2007). Non-postcolonial feminist texts
had been developed by publishers Xerais through their collection As Literatas
(renowned feminist author and thinker Mara Xose Queizan was the promoter
and director of this particular collection) and Sotelo Blancos translation of
classical feminist texts such as Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman. These works had for the most part been fostered by the
translators themselves, with clear commitment from the publishing houses
too.
Parallel to all this, thinking and research around translation moved a step
further with the creation of the Translation and Interpreting Faculty at the
University of Vigo, in which Galician is one of the languages students can
work from and into. The creation of the faculty helped provide qualified
professionals for a developing market in languages other than Spanish and
also scholars who started developing research projects on Galician translation in a more systematic way. In 1995 Viceversa, a Galician-language
journal on translation studies, was launched. In it, key authors such as
Gonzalez-Millan developed a Galician approach to translation greatly
influenced by reflections on power and language hegemony or, as he defines
it, a social experience of inequality:

8 I define this trend

as the search for the
enxebre, that which
is considered the
ideal of Galicianness
in language: use of
rare words, a
command of
vocabulary that has
been well developed
in Galician due to the
traditional uses of
the language
(descriptions of land,
agricultural practices
and tools, etc.).

Understanding translation as an interpretation and cultural reading of a text

belonging to a different cultural space, using two (or more) languages with (almost
always) different cultural status, opens the door to a translation theory based on a
social experience of inequality. This experience has several manifestations, as it
emphasizes different aspects of social and cultural practices and helps us study the
hierarchical notion of authors, texts, languages and cultures they are translated
into, as well as the acknowledgement of the objective deficiencies with which they
have to work. (Gonzalez-Millan 1995: 65)

Reflections around translation focused mainly on their contribution to the

development of a Galician-language literary system. The concepts of anovar
(to introduce something new) and anosar (to make ours) (see Lugrs and
Ocampo 1999) highlighted the value given in the Galician literary system to
a selection of works based on their symbolic contribution to the system. The
expansion of the language through translation and the use of a rich register
in terms of vocabulary and structure8 led to philological approaches to

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Mar a Reimo ndez

9 By poor language
use I mean a
deliberate noncolourful, spare
approach to
language,
exemplified by Herta
Mullers simple and
broken German.

427
........................

translation in which the value and point of view in assessing quality were
directly linked to whether or not good-enough Galician had been used.
Works in which poor language use is a key element of the literary work and
where translators had struggled to reproduce this aspect of their literary
reading of the original, were usually negatively reviewed (e.g. Franck
Meyers translation of Herta Mullers Der Mensch ist ein groer Fasan auf
der Welt, published in English as The Passport).9
The development of a translation studies department at the University of
Vigo coincided with the introduction of postcolonial and feminist studies in
the English department, which helped familiarize Galician scholars with the
international (i.e. English, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese) and
feminist/postcolonial developments in the field of translation studies.
However, as Cronin claims:
In the same way that minority languages have far more exposure to the fact of
translation than majority languages, marginalized groups, often as a result of
nomadic displacement or territorial dispossession, are generally much more
implicated in the practice of translation than dominant, settled communities.
However, it is precisely these minority languages and marginalized groups that are
largely absent as a focus of inquiry from translation theories and histories. (Cronin
2000: 45)

That is to say, those who have a wider experience are excluded from the
international debate, thus making the field of postcolonial translation studies
far smaller than it should be. Their absence, as I have tried to show, does not
mean that they are silent.

Translation as a Tool
It is in this context that my translation of Salmas novel The Hour Past
Midnight (Irandaan Jaamangalain Kathai) appeared in Galician in 2011. As
with many other translation projects, the initial idea to translate the novel
did not stem from the publishers, but from the translator (myself, in this
case). Despite the fact that I am publicly known in Galicia for my work as a
writer and development activist, I always claim that my main profession is
that of interpreter and translator (main also means the activity I depend
upon for my livelihood). This work brought the three facets of my
professional profiles together. My involvement with Tamil feminists and
womens groups started as far back as 1998, when I founded the Galician
organization Implicadas no Desenvolvemento, a political NGO trying to
overcome the links between patriarchy and capitalism through practical and
theoretical interventions. The organization has always been concerned with

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................

10 I was the
instigator of this
initiative and had the
chance to meet all
authors in the
collection personally
(except for Andaal,
the tenth-century
poet!) and was the
translator of the
poems into Galician
through the
mediation of English.

11 For example in
India, as a brief report
by the Indian
Foundation of the
Arts clearly states:
http://www.indiaifa.
org/index.php?
optioncom_content&viewarticle&id57&Itemid27.

428

issues relating to representation and power, and of course with national

identities and languages within the context of postcolonial theory and
feminism. Our goal to present the lives of women in the South from a great
variety of perspectives through their own voices and the idea of forging
alliances of women activists across peripheries led us to organize conferences
and other activities and, in 2006, to publish a poetry collection of Tamil and
Galician women poets, Vanakkam-Benvidas. Salma was one of the authors
involved and actually a key participant, as she helped us reach other authors
in Tamil Nadu.10
After this first endeavour, and led by my many Tamil friends and their
unanimous praise of Salmas novel, I decided to take on the translation of
Salmas The Hour Past Midnight. Some time later, the translation agreement
was signed with her publishers, despite the fact that Salmas novel runs to
some six hundred pages and that the economic effort involved was of no
immaterial importance for a Galician publisher. From the beginning it was
made clear that the translation would be made from the English version of
the novel. Though I have a good understanding of colloquial Tamil, I did not
have the literary and linguistic expertise necessary for translating this book,
therefore I had to work with Lakshmi Holmstroms translation into English,
which had been published in 2009. The idea of a continuum of authors was
therefore key for my approach to the text, as Robinson explains: The
translator does not become the writer; s/he becomes a writer, one very like
the original author, but only because they both write, and in much the same
way, drawing on their own experiences of language and the world to
formulate effective discourse (Robinson 1997: 3).
The translation was therefore already a hybrid text. From the beginning, I
was very clear about the fact that Holmstroms contribution had to be
acknowledged in the text and I even contacted her to make sure that she was
informed and that she claimed the rights that may be due for the use of her
translation. The tendency to hide the role of intermediary languages in
translation is the direct outcome of a veneration of the original text. A large
share of translations in the world are made through the mediation of other
languages,11 a fact rarely discussed when analysing them. The translators
invisibility is another important hurdle one has to deal with when using a
mediated text, as one has to guess, in the absence of any introduction, from
which position the text has been translated. In any case, I took the
translation as my original and worked with it as I usually do, putting my
interpretation together through a variety of sources and reflecting upon my
own position vis-a`-vis the text from a critical perspective. For reasons I will
explain, I tend to resist taking the author/s as the source for my reading of
the text. As an author myself, I have the feeling that the author has already
shed enough light on the text through writing it and that it is the reading of
others that helps unmask more layers of potential interpretations of the

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Mar a Reimo ndez

12 Salmas position
as a subaltern is
grounded in the fact
that she is a woman
of a religious
minority (around 85
per cent of Tamils
are Hindus), writing
in a language that is
non-hegemonic in its
context (the central
state has imposed
Hindi and English on
Tamils since after
Independence) and
belonging to a nation
with a culture quite
distinct from the
Indian construction
of the nation. The
fact that she is a
subaltern because she
is a woman is selfexplanatory
being
taken out of school
before she finished
her compulsory
education, and
forced to marry or
locked in a home for
several years are just
concrete examples of
how gender identity
has located her at the
margins. In the
literary world she is
the only Muslim
woman writing
fiction in Tamil.
13 Although as a
Galician woman I am
peripheral to many
centres, I may be
central in my
position in relation
to other women and
cultures.

429
........................

work. Furthermore, I believe that it is the translators role to picture for

herself the journey that the text has to make, something that the author may
not be in a position to do most of the time as they are usually unfamiliar with
the culture and language into which the text will be received. These
statements may seem crude unless we break free from the slavery (so well
explained in gender terms by Chamberlain 1988) of thinking about
translators as handmaidens to authors, a slavery postcolonial theory has
largely helped to abolish.
Indeed, in my case, the most important contribution to my reading of
Salmas text was my background in postcolonial theory focusing on
positionality and my feeling of responsibility as a mediator who has to
make the subaltern (a Muslim woman writing in Tamil)12 speak in another
language. This critical understanding of my position vis-a`-vis the text is what
later guided the specific decisions I made when translating the novel. My
position as a western feminist made me aware of the risks of domesticating
Salmas otherness, and I have always been critical of the excuse of using
ones peripheral position13 to ignore the peripheries created for others. The
complexity of Salmas work had to be considered first of all. Salmas novel
had shattered the Tamil literary scene with her depiction of the lives of a
group of Muslim women from a rural community in Tamil Nadu, a territory
nobody had explored before, and which was only related in public discourse
by men, who presented it as a haven. The pressure on the Muslim minority in
Tamil Nadu had led to political leaders always presenting Muslim women as
happy with their generally secluded and domestic lives, in a discourse of
respectability that could not be challenged. This is the description of the
novel provided by the Indian English-language feminist press Zubaan:
Inside their male-dominated world, Rabia, Zohra, Firdaus, and many others make
their small rebellions and compromises, friendships are made and broken, families
come together and fall apart, and almost imperceptibly change creeps in. Salmas
beautiful, evocative, poetic novel recreates the sometimes suffocating, and sometimes heartbreaking world of Muslim women in southern India. (Salma 2009)

The text, incredibly hard and heartbreaking, had caused much unrest in
Salmas (male) Muslim community due to the frank depiction of the way the
women in this community were treated, and also in the Tamil literary system
at large for her depiction of intra-religious tensions and womens sexual
desire.14 The text had also displaced the development of a Tamil identity
defined as Hindu by making the other visible and central, with large sections
14 In 2003, Salma and three
other women poets faced
obscenity charges and violent
threats, a controversy that

inspired filmmakers Anjali

Monteiro and K. P.
Jayasankar to make SheWrite
(2005), a documentary on

Tamil women poets. See

http://www.hindu.com/mag/
2008/01/27/stories/
2008012750130500.htm.

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................

15 Galicians have
taken part in the
colonization of the
Americas, in wars
against the other
and, a more recent
example, one of the
largest textile
industries exploiting
women and children
in the world, Inditex,
was founded by a
Galician
businessman and still
has its main
headquarters in
Galicia. However,
when developing a
discourse around the
nation, identification
with the Other has
been key and keen on
overlooking such
actions. (See, for
example,
identification with
Africans in Celso
Emilio Ferreiros
poetry or with
Native Americans in
Manuel Rivas.)

430

describing rituals and words only Tamil Muslims could be familiar with. The
novel was indeed a landmark for the Tamil literary system, a controversial
one no doubt. During the launching of the novel in Galicia, Salma claimed in
many interviews that she had been labelled a traitor to her community and
that she had been threatened and insulted several times.
At a different level, Salmas text was full of detail and was profoundly
poetic and idiomatic. The English translation was sometimes obscuring in its
approach to these aspects, but my acquaintance with the text through other
sources (informed readers of the Tamil text) helped me develop the tone for
such a careful and detailed writing. The language of rural women, their
restless gossiping, could very well be translated into Galician, a language
still similarly tied to a territory in which the rural has significant weight and
in which women have traditionally developed such ways of talking behind
closed doors, a task international English is rather unfit to perform, as by
definition it is not bound to any territory, just to a blurry international
community (i.e. people in institutions).
My responsibility in presenting a text written by a Tamil Muslim woman
to a western reader was quite overwhelming. Despite our peripheral
position, Galicians are part of the West and therefore our identity is also
formed in opposition to a silent other.15 I tried to use strategies that
challenged this position, and therefore kept the text with a high level of
otherness, as I will explain below. I did not try to bring the text close to the
reader but the other way round, as this journey is the only one that
guarantees a minimum of justice in such an unequal exchange. The usually
accepted Galician strategies of making the text ours could not be used in
my reading of Salma. On the other hand, I was acutely aware of Ambais
criticism of the way in which Tamil texts had been translated into English:
The translator who translates into English an Indian language always feels that it is
an act of favour where the Indian-language writer is being raised to a different
level . . . It is almost like a magical transformation where an ugly frog becomes a
handsome prince. (Ambai 2009: 65)

In my reading, the only ones being done a favour by Salmas text would be
us, Galician readers. We had to be dislocated from our comfortable western
position and move towards the other, listen to her in all her otherness. At the
same time, the novels local setting helped appeal to a universal understanding of the conflicts of the oppressed, something Galician readers could
be sensitive to. In any case, it was for me an act of responsibility to offer
readers an insight into this other hour past midnight, the place where
decisions are made in darkness
the translation process.
Introductions have been considered key metatexts in a political understanding of translation: the metatext is an essential tool to determine the

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Mar a Reimo ndez

431
........................

place and function that the agents fostering a particular translation have
determined for it (Baxter 2000: 72). My introduction was far from
providing a philological understanding of the choices made, but tried to
present the readers with my position vis-a`-vis this text and the potential
dangers I tried to avoid in its reception. My first concern was not to reinforce
the already existing stereotypes among western citizens about the Muslim
other and in particular Muslim women. Therefore, in my introduction I
highlighted the fact that the text does not speak about Indian women
either. I explained how this text had not been written for us, but that the
target audience of the novel were the members of the community it describes
and therefore it should not be read as an anthropological explanation.
Therefore, this text is radically different to others we sometimes receive
from that something we call India, originally written in English, already
mediated to a certain extent for a potential audience (Reimondez, in Salma
2011: 8
9). In the introduction, however, I also tried to highlight the
extraordinary aesthetic value of Salmas work, as this was no anthropological compendium, but a masterpiece in novel writing if there ever was one.
This approach to the work guided the decisions I made regarding the
translation. I decided to keep all names of family relations in Tamil, as a
simplification into Galician terms would erase the complex web of relationships and points of view that the novel provides. Thus, I kept amma,
periamma, akka, chitthi, etc. However, in contrast to the English translation,
I decided not to use some of those same terms when they refer generally to
women (the case of amma or akka) in order to avoid confusion, while using
other terms such as amiga, mulleres, etc., that show proximity or respect
according to the uses of Tamil. Likewise, I did not keep, as the English
version did, endings added to individual names that show respect or
familiarity in Tamil (e.g. anna added to the name of a man to show
proximity, as anna literally means elder brother), and used colloquial
Galician expressions to express the same degree of formality or proximity
(e.g. meu Mutthu instead of Mutthuanna). I also decided to keep all the
names of dishes, trees and prayers in the original language, such as badam,
biriyani, dosa or Maghrib, Kotbah, etc. The use of these elements in the
English version was sometimes puzzling; for example, instances in which
tangam (gold) is used in Tamil for no apparent reason, or the use of Konar in
the sentence Konar revision notes (Salma 2009: 122), which was basically
referring to the Tamil book (published by a firm widely known as Konar, the
caste the publisher belongs to and most likely their family name). I decided
not to leave those elements in Tamil as they did not add, in my reading, any
layer of meaning, and only helped make the text unintelligible. Finally,
despite Ambais complaint that Turning a culture into footnotes is a power
politics a writer has to constantly resist (Ambai 2009: 66), I decided to

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

.........................

432

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

include a glossary of terms at the end of the book for the following reasons,
as I explain in the introduction:

16 See all reviews or

summaries here:
http://www.xerais.
blogaliza.org/?sDespoisdamedianoite.
17 See http://www.
xerais.blogaliza.org/
2011/09/23/doloresvilavedra-aborda-%
C2%ABdespois-damedianoite%C2%
BB-e-%C2%ABviasecundaria%C2%
BB-no-ultimo-repaso-de-novidades/.

These alien words have a key role to play in the original text itself because the
original text also questions through them the mainstream (Hindu) Tamil identity.
The text speaks from the voice of a minority and uses terms that an average reader
cannot understand. She needs to ask, search, become interested in knowing what is
being said. (Reimondez, in Salma 2011: 13)

The glossary performs the role of a Muslim person close by who can answer
our questions and who is in our case too far away. In the end, my intention
was to use more alienating choices
choices that, instead of bringing Salma
closer to us can take us closer to her, trying to find some mid-point, a fairer
and more balanced place from which to communicate (Reimondez, in Salma
2011: 14).
Salmas text has been received in the Galician literary system with
enthusiasm and awe.16 Perhaps it is awe due to ignorance, but awe after
all. Dolores Vilavedra,17 a renowned literary critic in Galicia, recently
wondered about the many things we are missing, that is, about the
countless works as wonderful as Salmas that go untranslated just because
they are not written in a hegemonic language.

Conclusion
In a world of increasing imposition of monolingualism as part of neo-imperial
domination, non-hegemonic subjects are in dire need of communicating and
establishing alliances across borders. Within the logic of empire, which is
that of an all-encompassing universal centre, led by the objective of total
integration, essentially monological and monolingual (Ribeiro 2006), those
projects challenging monolingual dynamics have to be given priority, as
Talpande Mohanty (2003) claims in the context of feminist struggles.
However, there is no alliance without a critical approach to translation.
Translation helps us realize the words of Lorde: Only within the interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to
seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and
sustenance to act where there are no charters (Lorde 2007: 111).
The example of Salmas translation and the alliances forged thanks to it
show that what is important after all is that one masters tools can indeed
dismantle another masters house, if used with caution. One needs to be
familiar at least with the culture involved to the maximum extent possible
and gather as many sources as possible for a critical reading of the text
(Spivak 1992). Those sources need not be the usual ones (namely the author/

OF MASTE RS AND T OOLS

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

Mar a Reimo ndez

433
........................

s, in this case Salma and Holmstrom). In my case, developing a critical

reading of the text was far more informed by readings by others, by the
actual readers of the novel, and my acquaintance with the actual living
circumstances of women in Salmas milieu.
In this case, the use of a third language was a crutch that helped develop a
common understanding of place and also a common project for feminists in
different parts of the world. Making this third language, English, visible in
the process also helps challenge its position as hegemonic and openly discuss
the political underpinnings of translation mediated by third languages, a fact
largely obscured in all literary systems. This subversive use of a hegemonic
language has forged alliances across feminist activists of non-hegemonic
languages is proven by Salmas words of affection for the Galician feminists
she met during the launching of her novel: I was moved and impressed when
I listened to them speak. Besides, they all shared their love for their language
and boldly expressed their thoughts in it (Alonso 2011). In private
conversations she often explained how different the reception of this
translation felt to the English version (she could not read either of them),
as the audience was a tangible one, an audience of people so interested in her
language and her culture, of people facing similar challenges as feminists and
as speakers of a non-hegemonic language. Maybe because, after all, it is our
otherness that makes us really universal.
R e f e ren c e s
Alonso, Carmen (2011) Entrevista: Salma, El Ideal
Gallego: 29.
Ambai (2009) To pierce a mustard seed and let in
seven oceans, in N. Kamala (ed.) Translating
Women: Indian Interventions, New Delhi: Zubaan
Books, pp. 63
7.
Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen
(1989) The Empire Writes Back: Theory and
Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, London, Routledge.
Banda, Paul (2009) Translation matters: linguistic
and cultural representation, in Judith Inggs and
Libby Meintjes (eds) Translation Studies in Africa,
London: Continuum, pp. 1
20.
Bassnett-McGuire, Susan and Trivedi, Harish (1999)
Post-Colonial Translation, London: Routledge.
Baxter, Neal (2000) O metatexto, Viceversa 6: 59
74.
Bhabha, Homi K. (1994) The Location of Culture,
London: Routledge.
Chamberlain, Lori (1988) Gender and the metaphorics of translation, Signs 13(3): 454
72.
Chaturvedi, Vinayak, ed. (2000) Mapping Subaltern
Studies and the Postcolonial, London: Verso.

Cronin, Michael (2000) History, translation, postcolonialism, in Sherry Simon and Paul St-Pierre (eds)
Changing the Terms: Translation in the Postcolonial Era, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp.
33
52.
Dasilva, Xose Manuel (2003) Babel entre nos. Escolma de textos sobre a traduccion en Galicia, Vigo:
Servicio de Publicacions da Universidade de Vigo.
Gonzalez-Millan, Xoan (1995) Cara a unha teora da
traduccion para sistemas literarios marxinais. A
situacion galega, Viceversa 1: 63
72.
Ives, Peter and Lacorte, Rocco, eds (2010) Gramsci,
Language and Translation, Lexington: Lexington
Press [Kindle format].
Lorde, Audre (2007) The masters tools will never
dismantle the masters house, in Sister Outsider,
Berkeley: Crossing Press, pp. 110
13.
Lugrs, Alberto Alvarez and Ocampo, Anxo Fernandez, eds (1999) Anovar/Anosar. Estudios de Traduccion e Interpretacion, Vigo: Servicio de
Publicacions da Universidade de Vigo.
Luna Alonso, Ana (2003) Imaxes e representacions do
outro: a literatura galega cara as linguas do Estado

i n t e r v e n t i o n s
1 5: 3

Downloaded by [Brought to you by Unisa Library] at 03:30 23 July 2016

.........................
espanol, Anuario Grial de Estudos Galegos 2003:
52
9.
Meylaerts, Reine (2007) A poltica lingustica e
tradutiva nas sociedades multlingues. Algunhas
observacions preliminares, Viceversa 13: 9
23.
Noia Campos, Ma Camino (1995) Historia da traducion en Galicia no marco da cultura europea,
Viceversa 1: 13
62.
OCallaghan, Joseph F. (1998) Alfonso X and the
Cantigas De Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography,
Leiden: Brill.
Reimondez, Mara (2009) The curious incident of
feminist translation in Galicia: courtcases, lies and
gendern@tions, Galicia 26(1): 68
89, http://www.
galicia21journal.org/A/pdf/galicia21_6_reimondez.
pdf.
Ribeiro, Antonio Sousa (2006) A traducao como metafora da contemporaneidade, http://www.eurozine.
com/articles/article_2005-
07-
18-
ribeiro-pt.html.
Robinson, Douglas (1997) Translation and Empire,
Manchester: St Jerome.
Said, Edward (1979) Orientalism, New York: Vintage.
Salma (2009) The Hour Past Midnight, trans. Lakshmi
Holmstrom, Delhi: Zubaan.
Salma (2011) Despois da medianoite, trans. Mara
Reimondez, Vigo: Xerais.
Simon, Sherry (2000) Introduction, in Sherry Simon
and Paul St-Pierre (eds) Changing the Terms:
Translation in the Postcolonial Era, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp. 9
29.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988) Can the subaltern speak?, in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossbert (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of

434

Culture, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp.

271
313.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1990) The Postcolonial
Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, London:
Routledge.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1992) The politics of
translation, in Miche`le Barret and Anne Phillips
(eds) Destabilizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist
Debate, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp.
177
200.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1995) Introduction to
Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps: Three Stories,
trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, London: Routledge, pp. xxiii
xxx.
Talpande Mohanty, Chandra (2003) Feminism Without Borders, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Trivedi, Harish (2005) Translating culture vs. cultural
translation, in Paul St-Pierre and Kar C. Prafulla
(eds) In Translation: Reflections, Refractions,
Transformations, Delhi: Pencraft International, pp.
251
60
Tymoczko, Maria (2010) Translation, Resistance,
Activism, Boston: University of Massachusetts
Press.
Tymoczko, Maria and Gentzler, Edwin (2002)
Translation and Power, Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.
Venuti, Lawrence, ed. (2000) The Translation Studies
Reader, London: Routledge.
wa Thiongo, Ngugi (2006) Decolonizing the Mind,
Oxford: James Currey/Heinemann.
Young, Robert J. C. (2001) Postcolonialism: An
Historical Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell.