ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the work of multilingualism in the context of personal displacement offered from the perspectives of theatre makers, actors, and playwrights who are themselves in exile. It focuses on the issues of decolonization, intracultural displacement, translational encounter, and enabling empathy through experiential writing. These case studies at some of the many dramaturgical strategies that can be used in multilingual performances dedicated to expanding the concept of multilingualism to the notion of the languages of the stage. The book also focuses on encounter as the leading strategy of multilingual dramaturgy in the work of transnational and globalised artists whose personal nomadic position is conditioned by the circumstances of their work. It demonstrates how a subject of many languages and many selves speaks and writes from the liminal space of translational encounter where languages, cultural traditions, and beliefs meet and intersect.
