Rushdie The ‘Translated Man’

This paper is an approach to Salman Rushdie, his life and his writing as essentially shaped by migration, which makes him feel a ‘translated man.’ In this respect, Rushdie is emblematic of the migrant writer. I argue that the shift from exile to migrancy is indicative of the migrant writers’ significantly new perception of their own cultural location as interstitial and hybrid, a condition explained by cultural theorist Homi Bhaba.‘Moving across the planet’ in this ‘translation’, Rushdie and other migrant, hyphenated and hybrid writers have access to a number of worlds. This access gives them a ‘double vision’, translating their uncertainty, inquisitiveness and obliqueness, which they impart to their characters that have various experiences of migration. The conclusion is that this ‘in-betweenness’ may be seen as the essential condition of humanity, which is, according to Andrei Pleşu, ‘a species of the interval.’