Amanda Gorman’s Dutch translater sacked for being ‘white and non-binary’

Let's face it, the wonderful thing about a skilful storyteller is their ability to conjure believable scenarios and characters out of thin air. A good book transports us through time and place and into circumstances we never dreamt of, while resonating with some deeply understood truth about the human condition we didn't even know we knew about. Most of the arts, visual, musical, literature, performance are there to capture and reflect some aspect of human experience. This search for some idea of purity of identity denies this happens at all. Should no one read a book, or look at a painting, or watch a dance if they don't have exactly the same demographics and experiences as the author, artist, dancer? We consume these things because they broaden our horizons.

These regressive, limited, narrow-minded ideologues can take their wish to impose their beliefs on me and fuck right off.

[quote Igneococcus]I just saw an article about Ishiguro in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5aabbe94-7a80-11eb-823e-250f70612dc4?shareToken=e6d54fe3f04127fef90b985dc979d77a[/quote]
A brief but good article and some interesting comments below the line. I think a good point made by a few people is that we only get to hear about this kind of thing when it impacts already high-profile people. What we don't get to hear about - unless involved in the publishing industry - is about the stifling culture which prevents some authors from getting published in the first place, which places limits on the creative imagination based not on talent but on identity and which only gives voice to a pretty narrow perspective (ironic considering it's supposed to do the opposite).

And apparently they aren't good enough according to identity politics.

Marieke is a female name, so I'd presume a woman.

Jacques Brel (we won't go into his treatment of women) had a song about a Marieke. I think his family now say he probably had autism, which of course went undiagnosed at the time.

"This is interesting to me because if we continue to give such weight to identity above other characteristics, such as skill as a writer, it will affect marginalised groups far more than anyone else, yet these are ones campaigning hardest for identity based policies."

From my experience it'e not marginal groups pushing ID politics its a top down movement being supported by university educated, middle class white folk who want to assuage their guilt. See Coke telling their employees to "be less white."

The ridiculous form of ID politics we have now is actively harming to the fight for equality by those very groups it seeks to represent. Whats the phrase go - no taxation without representation? Maybe I am paraphrasing badly but I think that if the orgs pushing these policies were truly representative they would be told by their marginalised staff how ridiculous it all was.

Who were the "campaigners" here, and who were they claiming to represent?

And, more importantly, why did anyone listen?

Just to check how insane this is - was the translator actually female or not?

I just saw an article about Ishiguro in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5aabbe94-7a80-11eb-823e-250f70612dc4?shareToken=e6d54fe3f04127fef90b985dc979d77a

[quote MaudTheInvincible]Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken about the restrictions inherent in the current fashion for demonising anyone who dares to write from any point of view but their own. It is highly limiting, and in the end it can only work to the detriment of the most marginalised of voices.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56208347[/quote]
Indeed, if Kazuo Ishiguro had followed that orthodoxy, we would never have got the wonder that is The Remains of the Day. Or can anyone write about white people?

Batshit the lot of it. What really bothers me is that real life bread and butter issues of social inequality and you know, boring things like poverty get far less attention than this sort of nonsense that only this teeny, tiny minority of privileged people give a rats ass about. Maybe when we've solved or at least begun to solve the much bigger and real problems all of us have and less privileged groups in particular half, this sort of thing will actually seem not quite so self-indulgent as it does now

Kazuo Ishiguro has spoken about the restrictions inherent in the current fashion for demonising anyone who dares to write from any point of view but their own. It is highly limiting, and in the end it can only work to the detriment of the most marginalised of voices.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56208347

So young black female now not able to sell in the Netherlands... How progressive.

The strangest thing is that, as I understand it, the translator was the author's choice! I translate all sorts of stuff I have no direct experience of because I am a good translator and if I don't understand something I research it or, failing that, ask the client to clarify. My identity has nothing to do with it.