As writers we have to decide what to I write about, which point of view we will choose, who will be our audience. What if on top of everything, you had to decide in which language to write? For the increasing numbers of bilinguals and polyglots out there, it is a valid question.
One could easily assume that the choice of language is a simple issue of comfort or practicality. In which language is it easier for me to write? In which language will I have a bigger audience? The reality is far more complicated.
Ease and comfort certainly was a consideration for Silvana Goldemberg. Originally from Argentina, she had already written several children and YA books in Spanish when she moved to British Columbia. Though she continues to write in Spanish, her life in Canada pushed her to write in English as well. She uses her second language when writing non-fiction and short stories only, as she still finds it takes her longer to write in English. “I also write stories in one language and translate or rewrite them into the other, so I have them in both languages”, she adds. That is not always possible, though. Sometimes, one of her micro-fiction stories might only work in one of the languages because the main point “is a pun that doesn’t make sense in the other language”, says Goldemberg.
Practical considerations are definitely a reason for many, but not always. Sometimes, the choice of language for writing is much more random. For Lebanese-born Antoine Badaoiu, it was pure chance. His first children’s story was written, of all languages, in Portuguese. The Brazilian Institute where he was studying organized a story competition to promote the use of the language among the students. That call prompted him to write in his fourth language and the story won him the second prize. Now living in BC and working as a counsellor with Syrian refugees, his first thought was to write another children’s book about diversity, this time in English. After doing some research and seeing the dearth of material published in Arabic, he decided to write this book in Arabic instead.
Not everybody has such an easy time moving from one language to another, though. Israeli-Canadian writer Ayelet Tsabari had been writing in Hebrew since she was six years old. After moving to Canada, there was a long stretch when she felt in writing limbo, her Hebrew growing rusty, her English still not developed enough for her to convey the complexity she needed to write fiction. The switch came through a compromise, changing genres. She started writing literary non-fiction and short stories. Eventually, she discovered a new version of herself in her adopted language. For her, the experience was freeing, a possibility to reinvent herself and to add a layer of complexity to her experience of being “in between places, in between identities, in between languages.”
Sometimes, though, the choice of a foreign language is not necessarily a reflection of your lived experience, but the only way that makes it possible for you to say what you want. Languages that one acquires later in life words don’t come with the visceral reactions and emotional charge that the ones we acquired as children. Working with a language that is so detached from you, can also be freeing when dealing with material that is difficult to write. That was the case for a colleague who was working on a painful memoir. Though a fluent speaker of English, the awful amount of the language’s homophones seemed to be tricking her when writing. Why wouldn’t she write in English instead, where she would have an easier time? She told me it was because French allowed her the necessary distance from that material. I could relate to that. When the issue we are writing about is a difficult one, writing for another, foreign audience in a foreign language adds layers of (perceived) safety. Yet, in both her and my case, the choice of a third language to tell about a difficult or politically charged past wasn’t such a stretch. After all, we already lived in a country where we used the language in our everyday life and work. But for others, that distancing, fleeing if you want, becomes such an imperative that the person is willing to learn another language from scratch to express what they need.
Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri confesses that Italian, a language she had no prior connection with, was initially just an infatuation. That unrequited love lasted over a decade until she decided to move to Italy. Choosing to write in Italian seemed “a transgression, a rebellion, an act of stupidity.” There was certainly a backlash. Both Lahiri and Tsabari’s decision to change languages was met by resistance; people predicted disasters. After all, the language one chooses to write in is always a political decision.
Despite the warnings and the difficulties of expressing themselves in their adoptive language, both Lahiri and Tsabari persevered. Both speak about a more genuine, more vulnerable part of themselves when trying to communicate in their adoptive language. There’s nowhere to hide in that language. The constrains imposed by the new languages allowed them to find a different direction, an opening to other possibilities. After all, if what we do as writers is to play with words, writing in another language is having the chance to play with a new game, with different pieces and a new set of rules. All the more fun.
Whatever the choice or the reason for doing it, there is much to be gained by encouraging different voices in different languages. They allow us to reach further, to cross boundaries, to communicate across the ultimate frontier. They allow for different ways of seeing the world and being in the world. In a province that is home to more than thirty First Nation languages and tens of other languages from across the world are spoken, we should hope for and embrace that stories be told in as many languages as possible.