Abstract
Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 novel, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia features two fictional worlds, Urras and Anarres, with distinct political structures and languages. Anarres is created by the revolutionaries who departed capitalistic Urras to create a new anarchist community, and its language was invented so as to have no word for “property” or “class.” However, the artificial distinction in the languages do not hold up the binary of possession and non-possession in these worlds, as the word “possession” permeates interpersonal relationships even on Anarres. To replace the binary approach of the revolution, the novel proposes an alternative mode of relationality in the movement of “returning” that resolves two paradoxical temporalities of sequence and simultaneity. This paper argues that the novel utilizes the motif of translation to represent this relational movement of “returning” by producing a “perfect” translation at the end. Juxtaposing Le Guin’s own translation practice with this scene will show how The Dispossessed enables us to reexamine our conceptions of “home” as the spatiotemporal and interpersonal meeting ground with others.
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Recommended Citation
Coller-Takahashi, Rumi
(2026)
"Temporalities of Translation in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed,"
Living in Languages: Vol. 4, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/liljournal/vol4/iss1/7
Included in
American Literature Commons, Language Interpretation and Translation Commons, Translation Studies Commons