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Multilingual Anthology of American Literature: A Reader of Original Texts with English Translations

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Multilingual America's contributing authors undertake to recover our nation's multilingual heritage by surveying texts written in languages other than English. In some of only a few of the collection's essays, Orm Overland, an authority on the Norwegian-American experience, gives a new twist to the melting pot vs. multicultural debate; Peter Conolly-Smith turns a discerning eye on linguistic assimilation among German-speaking immigrants in turn-of-the-century New York city; Matthew Frye Jacobson explores the prismatic effect of the American immigration/emigration experience on 1890s Yiddish-American fiction; and renowned French scholar Michel Fabre illuminates the work of French-speaking Afro-Creoles in 19th century New Orleans. In drawing attention to the country's linguistically diverse literature, the collection explodes the modern-day myth of a monolingual literary genealogy rooted solely in Chaucer and Shakespeare. At the same time, Sollors and his colleagues build a compelling case for the proposition that non-Anglophone works of fiction, poetry, and drama can, and indeed must, be part of the American literary mainstream. For, as the collection makes clear, an appreciation of American multilingulism is central to an understanding of the nation's multicultural history. In promoting an "English plus other languages" world view, this book's contributor's also remind us of the enormous advantages of multilingualism in an increasingly globilized political economy. We must, editor Sollors rightly insists, teach our children more Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and European langauges so that the next generation is prepared for its "conversation with the world."

This is an incredible selection of writers, many of whom are new to me and worthy of being included in the canon. My only reservation about this book (published in 2000) is the inclusion of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque's proven hoax the Walum Olum. Not only are we treated to 52 pages of a sparkling rendition of it, but the notes do not allow readers to review the problematic history of the Walum Olum manuscript. In short, the Walam Olum is presented as a bona fide "epic" of the Delaware. For those interested in understanding more about the Walam Olum and why Rafinesque created the hoax, see David M. Oestreicher's "Unraveling the Walam Olum" in the Oct. 1996 issue of Natural History. The infomation was available a full four years before the publication of this anthology. One wonders what other mistakes the authors allowed into the book. All in all, though, this is a worthwhile collection

"The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature," edited by Marc Shell and Werner Sollors, is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the literature and culture of the United States. This book brings together a wide range of texts, each of which was originally written in a language other than English: Italian, Chinese, Russian, Danish, Yiddish, Navajo, Greek, and more. For the most part, the selections are presented in their original language, with the English translation on the facing page of each two-page spread.

In his introduction, Sollors notes that the purpose of this anthology is "to make visible the most glaring blind spot in American letters." The editors, in my opinion, succeed in this goal. This is a richly diverse gathering: autobiography, myth, short stories, poetry, humor, history, sermons, and more are included. The texts span several centuries, from the colonial era to the 1990s. Each selection includes its own separate introduction. Along the way are many fascinating facts--did you know, for example, that more than 50 Welsh-language periodicals circulated in America during the 19th century?

Some of the selections that intrigued me the most were Omar Ibn Said's 1831 Arabic slave narrative (which also raises interesting questions about religious pluralism in the United States); the Walum Olum of the Lenape, a Native American creation myth accompanied by fascinating pictographs; and "The Tyrolean" (1897), Julian Czupka's humorous story of Polish immigrants.

"The Multilingual Anthology" is a book that truly opens windows onto little-appreciated aspects of United States culture. I also recommend Reinaldo Arenas' novel "The Doorman," written in Spanish by this Cuban exile to the United States.