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