Intimate Enemies

Translation—as a concept—has become central to postcolonial theory in recent decades, offering useful insights and metaphors for the processes explored within the framework of postcolonial studies. But translation itself is still an underexplored activity within this discipline. Intimate Enemies rights this wrong, weaving together reflections on translation by translators, authors, and academics working in regions of Africa, the Caribbean, and nations in the Indian Ocean. Moving beyond the traditional view of translation as betraying, at some level, original texts, the contributors instead highlight the potential for translation to counter the destructive effects of globalization, promote linguistic diversity, and reveal the dynamic political and economic contexts in which books are written, sold, and read.