Échos-Monde and Abrasions: Translation as a Form of Dialogue

This essay is born out of the practice of translation seen as a peculiar form of dialogue that is scriptural, often one-sided, deployed across time and space, yet by nature open to ever-new verbal responses. Beginning with a critique of the notion of globalization in the world immediately after 11 September 2001, it discusses the critically powerful concepts of ‘the community of those who have nothing in common' (Alphonso Lingis), ‘omniphone' (Patrick Chamoiseau) and échos-monde (Édouard Glissant) as expressions of the antithetical moves to resist the totalizing economy by creating an opaque linguistic sphere inhabited by numerous, silenced non-communities of the world. Translation is a necessary process to give rise to such an omniphone space where random, transversal connections are woven into a different kind of textuality of the world from that of global capitalism. The essay goes on to discuss anew the task of the translator, finally declaring: ‘To translate is to give abrasions to the world'.