Translation, Transnational Literature, and the Circulation of Cultural Knowledge

Translation does far more than convert words between languages. It operates as a mechanism through which cultures negotiate their identities, assert their boundaries, and participate in global intellectual exchange. This paper examines how translation functions within the broader context of transnational literary production, asking how texts move across linguistic and national borders, and what happens to cultural knowledge in that movement. Drawing on scholarship by Lawrence Venuti, Pascale Casanova, Emily Apter, David Damrosch, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Homi K. Bhabha, among others, this paper argues that translation is never politically neutral, and that the choices translators make, whether to domesticate or foreignize, whether to preserve ambiguity or resolve it, shape how readers in receiving cultures understand the world beyond their own. The paper also examines how certain languages and literary traditions exercise disproportionate influence over global cultural circulation, and what consequences follow from that asymmetry. It concludes with a discussion of how scholars and publishers might think more critically about the ethics and politics of translation in an era of accelerating literary globalization.