(Non)Translation as Resistance in Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen

What is it about?

Tomson Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen is examined as a ‘first translation’ in which untranslatability plays the main role. The term ‘first translation’ will be defined, and a deliberately refined definition of a hybrid text will be reviewed through the lens of several Indigenous scholars. Then, following a brief description of Highway’s novel, the paper will envisage its translatory nature from the point of view of three narrative strategies: 1) The insertion of Cree lexical elements within the text. Here, in a codified manner, Highway forces the reader to grasp the importance his mother tongue has in understanding the novel’s complexities. 2) This is followed by a section on the use of Cree mythology within the narrative. Gerald Vizenor’s use of Bakhtin becomes a useful tool in accessing the idea of two consciousnesses through the intertwining of the fantastic and mythology. 3) And finally, the linguistic challenge of cultural contact within the story itself is examined. From the foreignness of English, quite literally attached to the sound of the language, to the inability of expressing the reality of abuse endured in residential school in Cree, the protagonists push up against irreconcilable cultural/linguistic worlds. Put together, these three different narrative strategies come together to form a langue culture, to use Henri Meschonnic’s term.

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Why is it important?

Translation is not always a concrete practice that occurs between languages, it is also an intra-human phenomenon, one that can be a powerful tool to express resistance against oppression and to create a whole new way of communicating. Rather than understanding the phenomenon as partial or incomplete, I believe that it it can come to represent something completely new, a new literary language in this case.

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