4/8: Why we need multilingual journals

Last week, we released our annual Multilingual Magazine, the Polyglot, which is linked at the beginning of this email. As we are celebrating the wonderful multilingual student creative work from Brown, we should also note that the Polyglot is only three years old. We are just getting started with building an accessible journal for students to publish their creative work in language other than English. And as far as I know, there aren't many specifically multilingual journals at universities in the US. It's relatively commonplace for university department to host journals in languages other than English, but usually confined to just one language, or a family of them, which isn't necessarily accessible for languages without established study programs, documentation, or written traditions. One of the goals of the Polyglot, then, is to provide a space where all languages, including languages without institutional support or large populations of speakers and learners at Brown, have a place for creative work to be published.

The Polyglot is a journal of creative work that is inherently and purposefully multilingual. Its existence raises questions about the nature of publishing multilingual work, beyond just the university context and into the larger literary and creative world. Should literary journals accept work submitted in languages other than English (or the primary language of the journal, if it is not English)? What about if a translation is provided? What if the work itself is a translation? What if there's no translation at all? 

The Kenyon Review, one of the most prestigious literary journals in the country, notes on its submission page: "We do consider translations in the categories listed above," provided the submitter holds rights to the English language version. The Paris Review states: "All submissions must be in English and must be previously unpublished. Translations are welcome and should be accompanied by a copy of the original". The Paris Review, as may be apparent from the name, is published in France—yet its language of publishing is English. These policies demonstrate a recent trend in modern literature: translations are increasingly considered equally to, or at least alongside, source-language writing, and published in magazines, newspapers, journals, and other places where creative writing reaches the public. But what about pieces without translations, like most of the work we publish in the Polyglot? 

First, it's useful to clarify: what is the value of literary and artistic work going out into prestigious academic or creative journals? Maybe you've never hear of the journals I just mentioned. Regardless, publishing in a journal is about much more than the actual readership of the journal; it is also an accolade that can be used to catapult writers and creatives to higher-paying positions and offers, opportunities and publicity, and all of the material benefits that make living as a creative more possible. And more abstractly, writing that goes out into established magazines, or other spaces for prestige and recognition, adds to the literary and cultural environment where new writers are made. If creative writing and art isn't published in smaller or less institutionally-supported languages—or even if the path to publishing is available, but narrow and rocky—then the writers and creatives in these languages are never given the chance to join into this cycle. Opportunities disappear; the possibility of supporting a lifestyle as a creative fades. And there are fewer opportunities for talented writers and artists to foster a larger, more vibrant creative community and literary atmosphere for not only their contemporaries, but for future generations. If you never see creative writing published or celebrated in your heritage language, for example, how likely would you be to begin writing creatively in that language, or to imagine a viable future for yourself in that pursuit? 

Likewise, creating English only spaces for publishing contributes to this cycle, in that English is perpetually propped up as the vehicle for creative work and legitimate artistic expression, including in English translations. The more we herald English-only creative spaces, not just in America but across the world, the more that writers and artists are encouraged to create in and engage with English as a lingua franca and road to opportunity.

Okay, but what would it mean to start publishing pieces in languages beside English in spaces that are traditionally English-only, with readerships that may be mostly monolingual in English? This is a question of accessibility, as well. But even if we imagine this scenario, in which one or two or several pieces in languages other than English are published in the Keyon Review, or another top-tier literary journal, the benefits are immediately clear. These pieces reach writers and creatives across the country, some of whom already speak a language besides English, perhaps the language in which the piece is written. They see the piece, read it, maybe enjoy it; they might be inspired write a piece in that language; they might share it with other friends in the same language community, who might be interested in writing.

As for the English-only reader—what about them? Anton Hur, the keynote speaker from this year's Translation Across Disciplines Conference, wrote a well-known essay on this "typical English reader," the apparent figure for whom literary magazines and novels and short stories are all meant to be—and how this reader is a myth, created by the historical expectations and limitations of the discipline. We should, according to Anton and myself, write and publish creative work for the readers we are, the readers we see and appreciate in the world, and the readers we want to create in the world. This is the goal of the Polyglot! Even if not all of our readers can necessarily read all of the pieces—in fact, I don't think there's a single person at Brown (or in the world?) who could read every piece—we publish them toward an audience of readers engaged with language, interested in other students' engagement with language, and hopeful for a more multilingual world.