Nimble Tongues is a collection of essays that continues Steven G.
Kellman's work in the fertile field of translingualism, focusing on the
phenomenon of switching languages. A series of investigations and
reflections rather than a single thesis, the collection is perhaps more
akin in its aims--if not accomplishment--to George Steiner's
Extraterritorial: Papers on Literature and the Language Revolution or
Umberto Eco's Travels in Hyperreality.
Topics covered include the significance of translingualism; translation
and its challenges; immigrant memoirs; the autobiographies that Ariel
Dorfman wrote in English and Spanish, respectively; the only feature
film ever made in Esperanto; Francesca Marciano, an Italian who writes
in English; Jhumpa Lahiri, who has abandoned English for Italian; Ilan
Stavans, a prominent translingual author and scholar; Hugo Hamilton, a
writer who grew up torn among Irish, German, and English; Antonio
Ruiz-Camacho, a Mexican who writes in English; and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as a multilingual text.