Forked Tongues

"Moving beyond the linguistic truism that an exact equivalency between a text and its translation is impossible, Murray argues that claims for authenticity in the translation of Native American texts are ideologically loaded by the various social and political needs that motivate the act of translation. In doing so, the translator simultaneously displaces and disempowers the native speaker while authenticating himself as able to legitimately and accurately represent form and intent of native discourse. The displacement is rooted in the assumption of most translators about the wholeness of meaning within a closed system of language and culture, a notion Murray effectively deconstructs. Much of the power of Murray's slim volume derives from his clear, forcefully written demonstration of the sociocultural problematics of translation across a number of genres, including oratory, autobiography, and contemporary anthropological textualizations. Both as argument and as demonstration, Murray's book establishes itself as the single best introduction to Native American text-making in particular and the betrayals of the translation in general. An essential acquisition for all college and university libraries, and highly recommended for larger public libraries.June 1992"

~A. O. Wiget, New Mexico State University