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Chapter 7Call to actionThe translator is the secret master of the difference of languages, adifference he is not out to abolish, but rather one he puts to use as hebrings violent or subtle changes to bear on his own language, thusawakening within it the presence of that which is at origin different inthe original.Maurice Blanchot (trans. Richard Sieburth)In the brief but provocative essay “Translating” (1971), Blanchotinverts the conventional hierarchy wherein “the original” is superior tothe translation. He considers the foreign text, not as the unchangingcultural monument in relation to which the translation must forever bean inadequate, ephemeral copy, but as a text in transit, “neverstationary,” living out “the solemn drift and derivation [“dérive”] ofliterary works,” constituting a powerful self-difference whichtranslation can release or capture in a unique way (Blanchot 1990:84).This assumes the foreign text to be derivative, dependent on other,preexisting materials (a point made by Sieburth’s decision to render“dérive” as two words, “drift and derivation”), but also dependent onthe translation:a work is not ready for or worthy of translation unless it harbors thisdifference within itself in some available fashion, whether it bebecause it originally gestures toward some other language, orbecause it gathers within itself in some privileged manner thosepossibilities of being different from itself or foreign to itself whichevery living language possesses.(ibid.)In negotiating the dérive of literary works, the translator is an agentof linguistic and cultural alienation: the one who establishes the