Textile Translations: Weaving Stories, Touching Meanings

Textile Translations: Weaving Stories, Touching Meanings offers a new and original perspective in translation studies. The key idea explored in this book is that we communicate not only through our intellect but also through our senses. Ma Carmen África Vidal Claramonte presents her view that if we communicate with our body, we also translate with our body through embodied translations. The book focuses on textile art as a form of textile translation that communicates without words, not only through the visual but also through tactile sensory experiences. It is richly illustrated with examples such as arpilleras and other creations by contemporary artists, such as Ghada Amer and Jen Bervin, who use the tactility of materials to rewrite not only situations of injustice, poverty, abuse of power, suffering, and despair, but also of hope and solidarity. A key text for anyone studying and researching translation studies, but also, due to the transdisciplinary nature of the book, it will appeal to those with an interest in anthropology and sensory studies.

África Vidal is Professor of Translation at the University of Salamanca, Spain. She has published more than a hundred chapters and articles, 12 edited volumes and 24 books, including Translating Indigenous Knowledges, Translation and Objects, Translation and Repetition; Translating Borrowed Tongues, Translation and Contemporary Art (all published by Routledge).