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Title: Translating Nations by Prem Poddar, Meena Alexander, Caroline Bergvall, Mahesh Daga, Hans Hauge, Lars Jensen, David Johnson, Graham McPhee, Cheralyn Mealor, Nelika Silva ISBN: 8-7728838-1-2 Publisher: Aarhus University Press Pub. Date: March, 2000 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $19.95

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Summary: National Identities and Violence
Comment: This critical anthology collects various approaches that register the changes in contemporary theory pertinent to the thinking of the nation. There are no less than nine different critical responses exploring the equivocal significance of narratives of identity, origin and progress in the cultural formation of the nation. As Prem Poddar puts it in the Introduction, "such a redescription of the nation works to acknowledge the complexities of cultural difference by raising the question of translation" (8). And in the same way, according to Homi Bhabha, translation involves both persistence and change such that the discourses around the nation are both "lost and returned, superseded and restored" (9).

Because the volume encompasses a wide range of theoretical approaches that move back and forth from the western topographies of Denmark and Canada to the cultural specificities of South Africa, Sri-Lanka and India, Meena Alexander's refreshing cross-breeding of critical and creative writing over the issue of cultural translation is appropriately the opening essay of this collection. In Alexander's paper the fluid diasporic world within which she must carve a space to live goes hand in hand with her woman's body that she cannot escape.

In his fascinating essay entitled "Europe's Violence: Some Contemporary Reflections on W. Benjamin's Theories of Fascism", Graham MacPhee discusses Benjamin's engagement with the aesthetic as a part of his examination of the consequences of technological modernity for the social and political forms bequeathed by the Enlightenment. By relating Benjamin's essay on German fascism to Kant's "Perpetual Peace", MacPhee attempts to show how Benjamin's oeuvre offers resources in reformulating the parameters of the nation "through its exploration of the recognition and negotiation of violence both within and beyond the borders of nation-state" (25). If MacPhee's reading of Benjamin's work is taken to mark the emergence of a new global topography in the aftermath of the first War World, Neluka Silva's essay on literary representations of contemporary Sri Lankan politics seeks to explore individual, collective and gendered identities in relation to nationhood. Through an acute examination of different genres and various Sri Lankan literary texts written in English, Silva wishes to show the construction of ethnic identities as inextricably linked to the nationalist rhetoric of the Sinhalese state on one hand and to the separatist discourse of the Tamil Tiger guerilla force on the other.

Two interesting essays deal with issues connected to nationalist identity and post-colonial experience. Lars Jensen focuses on the position of contemporary Canadian and Australian writer in relation to the idea of space as a shaping force in constructions of national identity. After examining numerous literary texts as examples of post-colonial literature, Jensen concludes that Canadian and Australian writing's relation to the center -be it national or geographical - can only be fluid and process-oriented, constantly changing to the interpretations of history. This argument is taken further by David Johnson in his analysis of a particular ethnic minority, the Griqua in South Africa, and their claims to the South African government for recognition. By providing three versions of colonial history that deal with questions of origin and the possible deprivations the Griqua might have suffered because of colonialism and apartheid, Johnson argues that while the post-colonial critic will focus on "the historically defined discursive systems" constituting Griqua national identity the South African member of the parliament has until recently refused to include Griqua ethnicity in the South African rainbow nationhood.

Where Johnson offers a close reading of key colonial Griqua texts in order to disclose the violence included in the category of the nation, Hans Hauge undertakes an original comparison of South African and Danish literary history. He concludes by claiming to have found neo-Kantian echoes in post-colonial discourse and by identifying Edward Said's Orientalism as an Arab postmodern text.

A more telling take on Danish history is presented Prem Poddar and Cheralyn Mealor. Through a meticulous postcolonial reading of Peter Høeg's novel Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, the critics provide a seminal, much-needed, and fascinating account of Danish nationalism. Poddar and Mealor view Smilla as a critique of Danish imperialism and Danish colonization of Greenland while at the same time they reveal the text's ambivalence in its treatment of Danish national identity. Read in this light, Høeg's novel becomes a paradigmatic text exploring the interrelated issues of colonialism, nation and migrancy.

Mahesh Daga's reading of vernacular archives seeks to demonstrate the ambiguities and confusions surrounding the use of the Indian term jati as nation during the closing decades of 19th century. More than questioning the uncritical translatability of such terms, Daga aims to demonstrate that the changes occurring in vocabulary of public discourse are "symptomatic of crucial changes in the conception of nation itself" (205).

Echoing the volume's opening essay, Caroline Bergvall's final paper seeks to explore questions of translation and translatability. Through an examination of texts written across several national languages, Bergvall argues that while translation from one language to another encourages notions of linguistic transparence and humanist universalism, plurilingual writing (writing that takes place across and between languages) operates "against the grains of conventional notions of translatability and intelligibility" (248). Moreover, by problematising the contemporaneity of hyphenated identities cross-lingual textuality foregrounds issues of personal and cultural memory and locatedness.

While the theoretical and methodological sophistication of Translating Nations may be lost on a reader who is not conversant with the related discourse, anybody interested in contemporary critical approaches to the nation should become acquainted with the volume.