Arianne Des Rochers. Language Smugglers: Postlingual Literatures and Translation within the Canadian Context. New York, Bloomsbury, 2023, 240 p.

In their first academic monograph, Language Smugglers: Postlingual Literatures and Translation within the Canadian Context, Arianne Des Rochers skillfully manipulates a surprisingly accessible prose to weave a robust theoretical argument which, though very thoroughly supported by examples from the Canadian context, is applicable to anyone interested in postlingual, translingual, or other radical forms of writing. They do not stop there, however. While their work centers on texts that are largely non-monoglossic, Des Rochers is quick to demonstrate that these theories apply to all texts. This situates their work not as a theory that can only be applied to certain texts that have certain characteristics, but instead as an ethical lens through which one can understand all translation exchanges, and all literature more broadly. In the following paragraphs, I provide a brief outline of Des Rochers’ arguments before exploring some of the connections between their work and other scholarship in the field. I close with a statement on the implications this has in a world saturated by entertainment, but always seeking something more. To explore these ideas, Des Rochers organizes the remainder of the book into four chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1 dismantles existing understandings of language at least insofar as translation is concerned. Rather than allowing the reader to embark on this intellectual journey from the starting point that languages exist as discrete standardized systems with fixed borders, Des Rochers instead demonstrates that to arrive at what are now fixed linguistic relics, languages first had to pass through a complex process of dissociation from speech followed by linguistic sedimentation and standardization (pp. 31-35). This paved the way for the creation of linguistically determined nation states, rather than the other way around. Translation, then, draws a line between these standardized forms in artificial ways which have become naturalized because we have been taught not to question them (p. 53). Translation, in this paradigm, relies on rigid structures that do not reflect the world around us. Instead, Des Rochers invites us to think of a postlingual reality. What if language, like so many other things, was poststructural? How could translation be opened up to a range of possibilities if only we allowed ourselves to dream (pp. 55-59)? After all, if languages are artificial, can’t we choose to remap them? Chapters 2, 3, and 4 each explore one axiom of translation that these theories problematize. In Chapter 2, Des Rochers dismantles the belief that translation can only take place between standard languages. To illustrate this, they rely principally on texts that may be traditionally considered heteroglossic, the work of Métis poet Gregory Scofield and Acadian novelist France Daigle. Des Rochers convincingly demonstrates that these authors consciously choose not to write in standardized forms to subvert rather than participate in dominant linguistic ideologies. They then go on to describe translation strategies for this work, proving their point. This work is being translated; hence translation can take place outside the context of standardized forms of language. Chapter 3 explores the axiom that translation is a rendering from one language to another (p. 111). Relying on queer theories, Des Rochers explores the sexual and linguistic abject of queer Québécois author Kévin Lambert and Indigiqueer author Joshua Whitehead. Working from the belief that the abject, or the danger that comes from outside (pp. 113-114), should destroy the system that constrains it (p. 135) rather than uphold it, they demonstrate that heteroglossic writing is abject only in the eyes of a readership that reads with a monolingual or colonial lens (p. 153). Consequently, normative translation—meaning translation from a standardized language to another standardized language—cultivates a readership …