Writing or Translating Otherness?

Starting from the recent debate on World Literature and Transnational Literatures (Damrosch 2003; Ascari 2011; Moretti 2000) we will demonstrate how this discussion is strictly related to the idea of translation as a hermeneutical category. If postcolonial writers defined themselves as “translated men” (Rushdie 1991:17), migrant writers adopt a new language deeply influenced by their mother tongue but enmeshed with the ‘adopted’ one. It is a language of loss, belonging and identity. Transnational writers are subjects in transit, people who, for economical, political or personal reasons, move across national borders. Still anchored to their past nonetheless they are deeply influenced by the languages and cultures of the host country(ies). The term ‘trans’ indicates the passage among different cultures and languages and the trespassing and widening of national borders. The essay is divided into two main parts: 1) a theoretical approach aimed at a) outlining the recent debate on World Literature and Transnational literatures, b) rethink the fruitful discussion within Translation Studies in the last decades, and 2) a second part which will provide a textual analysis of a novel, Con il Vento Nei Capelli, written by a Palestinian woman novelist, Salwa Salem.