
Speaking in Tongues
$56.26
- Hardcover
144 pages
- Release Date
9 May 2025
Summary
Lost in Translation: A Dialogue on Language and Meaning
Language, historically speaking, has always been slippery. Two dictionaries provide two different maps of the universe: which one is true, or are both false? Speaking in Tongues—taking the form of a dialogue between Nobel laureate novelist J. M. Coetzee and eminent translator Mariana Dimópulos—examines some of the most pressing linguistic issues that plague writers and translators well into the twenty-first century.
Book Details
ISBN-13: | 9781324096450 |
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ISBN-10: | 1324096454 |
Author: | J.M. Coetzee, Mariana Dimópulos |
Publisher: | WW Norton & Co |
Imprint: | WW Norton & Co |
Format: | Hardcover |
Number of Pages: | 144 |
Release Date: | 9 May 2025 |
Weight: | 275g |
Dimensions: | 211mm x 145mm x 18mm |
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Critics Review
”[Speaking in Tongues is] stimulating and occasionally surprising, with insights that can only arise from two authors who have ‘the experience of using our language as if it were a foreign one.’” – Henry Hitchings - Wall Street Journal“Growing out of their collaboration on Dimópulos’s Spanish translation of Coetzee’s 2023 novel The Pole, [Speaking in Tongues] examines limitations as much as possibilities—even as, in this thought-provoking set of interrogations, such a distinction is often rendered moot. Think of Speaking in Tongues, then, as a work of what we might call quantum criticism, in which every argument comes encoded with its antithesis, with ‘reality’ depending on the observer’s position.” – David L. Ulin - 4Columns“Cerebral, far-reaching … Coetzee and Dimópulos engage comfortably and earnestly, imbuing the erudite conversation with a natural rhythm … littered with pearls of insight … a rewarding rumination on translation, language, and power.” – Publishers Weekly“An evocative conversation between the Nobel Prize–winning novelist and his translator … [Speaking in Tongues] will compel many American readers to reassess the politics of translation and their own literary and linguistic imperialism. Fans of Coetzee will also find a refreshing colloquialism to this book and a respite from his recent judgmentalism about animal rights, Western power, and public institutions. You could read this book in an hour. You could think about it for the rest of your life.” – Kirkus Reviews“Dialogue has, through the ages, been the archetypal form for intellectual inquiry, and J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos remind us why. These are two extraordinarily well-stocked and agile minds and they’re thinking aloud here. For anyone engaged by the workings of language, the results are truly gratifying. Page after page is layered with observation, elaboration, qualification, and provocation.” – K. Anthony Appiah, Author of The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity“The kind of book you get once in a lifetime, Speaking in Tongues is a mithril-blend of scholarship and artistry that will transform your ideas of language, translation, identity, and possibly the universe.” – Junot Diaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize“It is a thrill to eavesdrop on J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos, whose spellbinding exchange of ideas touches on every aspect of translation as it has shaped their lives and their art. Speaking in Tongues is an intelligent, moving, and supremely humane act of criticism that reveals just how difficult and wondrous it can be to inhabit a language that is not your own.” – Merve Emre, Contributing Writer - The New Yorker“From a variety of perspectives, J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos take up, in both abstract and practical terms, such matters as the linguistic hegemony of English, gender, and the role and duty of the translator. Their conversation investigates language in compelling, astute, and often surprising ways.” – Ann Goldstein, Translator of Elena Ferrante and Primo Levi
About The Author
J.M. Coetzee
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, J. M. Coetzee is the author of more than twenty books, including The Pole; Waiting for the Barbarians; Life and Times of Michael K, for which Coetzee was awarded the Booker Prize; Boyhood: Scenes from a Provincial Life; and several essay collections. With his novel Disgrace, Coetzee became the first author to win the Booker Prize twice. In 2003, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Mariana Dimópulos is an Argentine writer, translator, and teacher specializing in German philosophy and the work of Walter Benjamin. She has published four novels, including Quemar El Cielo (2019), which was a finalist for the Fundación Medifé Filba Novel Prize. She is a professor at the University of Saarland and the University of Halle. She lives in Berlin.
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