ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to engage with the issue of translation and representation of disability in literary works, with particular reference to India. It highlights the role of translation in creating a nuanced understanding of an inclusive otherness. Translation is shown as facilitating a dialogue challenging inherited stereotypes, highlighting prevalent phobias, and norms of able-bodiedness, resulting in the re-construction of the image of self and other. The paper is divided into three parts, the first focuses on the ethos and ethics of translation, fostering cultural alterity, the second on issues of disability and literary representation, locating these within various theoretical models of disability, and the third on alternate aesthetics driving a counter discourse to sustain diversity.
Applying Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘afterlife’ and Paul Ricoeur’s concept of ‘linguistic hospitality’, the paper explores the dynamics of reading and writing differently, of bridging cultural discourses and historic contexts, as intrinsic to translation, emphasizing its transformative potential. Finally, there is a discussion on the choices of the translator while translatingRangeyaRaghava’s short story Goongeinto English, highlighting the social constructedness of disability, stimulating self-reflexivity and introspection of possible complicity and generating awareness of being temporarily able-bodied, contributing to the creation of a possible counter-discourse.
