13 December 2021
It's strange that the literature of a language that rubs up against so many others should be as wary of translation as English is. For English speakers, there seems to be an expectation that the entire world should be instantly legible, and if it isn't, that it be brought in seamlessly and domesticated. An intimate aspect of empire is the reassurance that you can travel almost anywhere and assume you'll be able to order in your own language; monocultural English speakers are rarely made to experience the childlike vulnerability of fumbling through a new grammar.