Perspectives on Eco-Translation in Diane Ackerman ("The Zookeeper’s Wife") and Kapka Kassabova ("Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe")

Abstract

The present article takes into account a current trend in the translation studies that reconsiders anthropocentric thinking about translation – as Michael Cronin, one of the leading theoreticians of this movement believes, communication systems have to be made effective against the threatening prospects of an imminent ecological crisis. Central to this expanded vision of translation is the idea that communication is not the exclusive “property” of humanity, but a natural means of interaction that characterizes the lives and being of all planetary forms of existence (including landscapes and geological sites). In other words, the Earth itself is held together by impulses of verbal and non-verbal communication, and human beings are just members of this infinitely extended, but effectively operating communicative space that Cronin refers to as “tradosphere”. While this is just the beginning of a challenging, exciting and meaningful re-routing of the conventional modes of thinking about translation, I aim to explore how this planetary consciousness can be employed as a critical instrument in reading narratives of suffering and survival. It is in such survival stories that human integrity is tested both psychologically and physically as physical menace strips human characters of their cultural identities and relocates them in the immense network of cross-species communication.