R.F. Kuang and Valeria Luiselli

Dear Reader,

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands,” (Kuang, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence) R. F. Kuang takes her readers on a journey of heroics, tragedy, and love all in the name of translation. Babel follows the story of Robin, not his real name, and his three friends as they attend Oxford in an attempt to further their magical world that relies on the work of translations. 

“Nice comes from the Latin word for “stupid”,’ said Griffin. ‘We do not want to be nice,” (Kuang,  Babel, or the Necessity of Violence). It’s interesting to know where our modern words come from, and interesting to know how translation works. Babel discusses the power of language through actual magic and teachings, as well as how dangerous those words can be when we don’t truly understand their meaning. 

“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?” (Kuang,  Babel, or the Necessity of Violence).  Kuang brings to my attention that translation isn’t necessarily an exact word for word translation of what’s said or written. Translation is actually changing the words to maintain the meaning of what’s being said, to maintain the tone and emotion and what the original writer is trying to convey. “So, you see, translators do not so much deliver a message as they rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty - rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the author's ideology and biases.” (Kuang,  Babel, or the Necessity of Violence). So, what does staying true to the meaning mean when we all have our own interpretations of the meaning? 

“‘Why did you come to the United States?’ That’s the first question on the intake questionnaire for unaccompanied child migrants,” (Luiselli, 7). Such a simple question that starts a long list of questions, all of which are harder than the last. This one seems to be good to start with, but how would a child answer? How do you translate and interpret the horrors and atrocities these children face? How do you do their story justice while remaining true to their innocent words and naivety about the world around them? This is what Luiselli tries to tackle in her novel Tell Me How It Ends, in discussing the lives of immigrant children seeking asylum in the United States. 

"Thousands have died or been gravely injured aboard La Bestia, either because of the frequent derailments of the old freight trains or because people fall off during the night..."(Luiselli, 19). The thing about this particular novel is that translation and interpretation is a big part of it. However, there are also a lot of facts, and this is one of those facts. In their journey to America, these people and children faced many atrocities that didn’t need interpretation. Sticking to the minimalistic language allows for the real horrors to stand out on their own. 

"I crossed the border by foot. She swam across the river,” (Luiselli, 62). What I appreciate about Luiselli’s writing is that while she is translating the stories of these children, she keeps her language as simple as possible. It’s almost like she’s aware that these are children and they wouldn’t articulate themselves in such a way, thus she kept the translations true to their innocence. In turn, what this does is convey how young these children really are, and how horrible their situation is for people at that age. Doing this makes me trust Luiselli to tell these stories to the best of her ability, because she’s not adding flourishes or fluff to the interpretation. In all of her translations she sticks to the facts of what she’s being told, and she keeps the word choices simple because that’s probably what the children had said. The children most likely didn’t discuss into detail what they saw, or at least not in a way that we might understand. We see criminals or delinquents, they see monsters. 

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang opens up the discussion of translation, interpretation, and how those lines blur between them. Valeria Luiselli translates the stories of immigrant children and what kind of cruelty they faced in search of safety. Luiselli uses simplistic language in her translations to remain as close to the original meaning and words as possible, keeping her writing faithful to the stories of these children.

-Grace Sofia