Remembering the multilingual: translation, memory and food in Amida’s Table Fare

Abstract

ABSTRACT Probing the connections between cities, cultural memory, culinary traditions and translation, this article presents a case study on a recent book exploring the multicultural culinary tradition of Diyarbakır, Turkey: Amida’s Table Fare: A History of Diyarbakır in Food, by Silva Özyerli (2019). A critical analysis of the book together with its paratexts shows that food meant more than simple nourishment to the author: a means of connecting communities, furthering culture and keeping resilient. Although the book was written mainly in Turkish, this article argues that it involves translational practice at three different levels: (i) interlingual translation between various languages of the city, in the form of paraphrase, explication or literal rendering, enables the author to foreground the multilingual and multicultural character of the city; (ii) remediating the memories of a scattered community and giving visibility to its multiplicity of languages, cultures and beliefs, the book becomes a reminder of what the city has lost, which makes it a ‘counter-translation’; (iii) with its aim at creating understanding and empathy on the part of its readers, the book also presents a ‘cultural translation’. The article concludes that translation at these levels proves helpful in giving space to unheard voices and resisting oblivion.