ABSTRACT

The idea of untranslatability may be understand in the expanded context of the history of translation. Translators turn to the original works of other writers to “force into being”—to (re)word—what they think has not yet been said in their own language. This attempt at pooling together the creative resources of writers from all over the world in order to face “things,” makes the practice of translation always and already a creative act of what would paradoxically call wild solidarity or wild collaboration. The literary translation seems like an ideal interface for theories about language and communication. But there is a gap, often unacknowledged, between the myths described in every translation theory and the creative, improvisational, and heterogeneous nature of the bricolage that characterizes most translations. Translation is about discovery, about making new matches between words and things, and about creating new meetings between literary communities.