Seeking a Substitute for Reality

On Fiction, Reality, and Translation in the Literary Collection Amputated Tongue

الملخص

The Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro introduces the term “perspectival anthropology,” a unique conception of anthropology as an act of cultural translation. According to him, translation is primarily directed toward the source language rather than the target language. De Castro suggests viewing translation not as a search for synonyms but as an act that situates meaning within “controlled equivocation.” Rather than erasing differences between the original and the translation, translation should highlight them. The fundamental premise is that equivocation always exists; therefore, instead of silencing the other, translation should expose the differences between what the other says and what we say. De Castro’s ideas on translation and its cultural context serve as the foundation for this article’s reading of Amputated Tongue, a Palestinian story collection in Hebrew translation. The translation of Palestinian stories into Hebrew is not merely a linguistic act; it also introduces Palestinian voices into Israeli Hebrew discourse. The article explores the relationship between Hebrew, a revived language central to the Zionist narrative, and Palestinian Arabic, which is silenced in the Israeli context. It examines the tensions in the literary collection between testimonial stories and fiction, realism and imagined realities, and returning to historical time and space versus envisioning alternative futures. Ultimately, the article analyzes how Amputated Tongue presents the ambiguity of Palestinian stories and reality in Hebrew, the ways that Israeli discourse silences them, and how the literary collection and the Translators’ Forum at Maktoob propose an alternative literary and cultural framework within the Israeli context.