FELDMAN, Jacqueline; QUINTANE, Nathalie
On Your Feet: A Novel in Translations

A novel-in-translations by Jacqueline Feldman, featuring a story by the amazing French poet Nathalie Quintane.

How, in a time of vibrant need, do you surface what is repressed societally—lodged in the political unconscious? By translating it, Jacqueline Feldman has found. Combining fiction in translation, travelogue, essay, the postcard, and a scholarly monograph, On Your Feet tells the story of a provincial city’s victory over the far-right figure, Marine Le Pen. It is the story of a cat-owning local poet’s valiant resistance and of a US woman—let us say an American girl—making her own, Joan-of-Arc-like entrance into the fray. This novel in translations slows time to take, with precision, the imprint of a moment in French and world history. It was a moment when fascist speech could be distinguished, still, from the great mass, separated out—leaving the moment, like the language, open to intervention. Making contributions to the theory and practice of translation, which has been considered an applied linguistics, On Your Feet is a searching theorization of the politics of literature. What it offers, to readers of to readers of both languages or either, is a new kind of applied literature. [publishers’ note]

Published by dispersed holdings, 2024
Literature / Poetry / Politics