Translated non-Western writing is absorbed through a single representative voice

Evidence

One consequence, then, is that the few writers who happen to write in English are valorized beyond measure. Witness, for example, the characterization of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in the New York Times as ‘a Continent finding its voice’- as if one has no voice if one does not speak in English. Or Richard Poirier’s praise for Edward Said in Raritan which now adorns the back cover of a recent book of Said’s: ‘It is Said’s great accomplishment that thanks to his book, Palestinians will never be lost to history. ’ This is the upside-down world of the camera obscura: not that Said’s vision is itself framed by the Palestinian experience, but that Palestine would have no place in history without Said’s book! — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 377

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s research on the collective-vs-individual bind in strategic essentialism — here the individual writer is made to stand for an entire people, which is precisely the mechanism Ahmad criticizes. — connects to: Translators favor readable English over literal fidelity while refusing simplification — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 78; English-writing non-Western intellectuals get elevated into representatives of whole continents — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 153; National roots are monolingual while errantry still speaks indirectly through detour — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 131

Broader Connections

• English-writing non-Western intellectuals get elevated into representatives of whole continents #expands (0.92) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 153
• Translators favor readable English over literal fidelity while refusing simplification #complicates (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 78
• National roots are monolingual while errantry still speaks indirectly through detour #corroborates (0.78) — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 131