No Time for Despair: Artists go to Work . . .
Women in Translation had been waiting for the moment to shout to the world that women no longer had to be wives to enter the White House—it seemed so close—but then woke up last Wednesday to The New Nightmarish Reality. In shock, speechless, and casting about for comfort, reassurance, and reasons to go on with our work, we came across this prescient essay by Toni Morrison from The Nation (March 23, 2015), "No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear," which closes with these inspiring words:
“No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art.”
So in this generative chaos we will keep on asking the question Where Are the Women in Translation? This question gains more urgency at a time when women’s dignity and equality are being denigrated, and the exchange of ideas across all borders—linguistic, geographic, corporeal, philosophical—are under threat.
Next up: Interviewing the Editors.