susan bennett minoritarian linguist in translation kushner's homebody

11/11/13 Rhizomes 20: Michael Y. Bennett

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Rhizomes » Issue 20 (Summer 2010) » Michael Y. Bennett

The Minoritarian Linguist in Translation:

Homebody/Kabul's Answer to Deleuze and Guattari

Michael Y. BennettUniversity of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Abstract

This article develops tw o parallel lines of thought: 1) f irst, it examines Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul through the lens of

Deleuze and Guattari's idea of the minoritarian linguist; and 2) then, just like the map in the play marked "Grave of Cain?," I

argue that this play is about w hat it means to conceptualize the w orld w ith a question mark attached to it. Like translation,

w here everything is inaccurate because a true translation is impossible, Kushner posits a w orld (w ith a metaphoric question

mark attached to it) w here everything is utterly unknow able. Know ledge is gained only through translations—personal, literal,

social, cultural. And thus, although much is lost in these translations, so much is gained in these hybrid moments. What I am

arguing in this article is that Homebody is a minoritarian linguist w hose ow n language is a forgotten language, but she speaks

in English. What she creates is a minor language that is marked by its hybridity. Homebody's ow n unique lingual position

mimics the art of translation, w ith its possibilities and impossibilities. Translation becomes a metaphor for cultural hybridity. As

a minoritarian linguist, performance yields pow er, but the inability to perform at Homebody's comfortable level turns out to

have disastrous consequences. Because Homebody is imagined, I argue, as "Homebody?" in Afghanistan (similar to "Grave

of Cain?), Kushner's play ultimately asks the question that Deleuze and Guattari never ask or answ er themselves: what

happens to a minoritarian linguist when read in translation? In a line from the play, Kushner suggests that the results of

translating a minoritarian linguist are "bloody, beautiful." Homebody becomes "Homebody?" w hen read in translation and is

therefore susceptible to being "traumatically separated."

Introduction

[1] Tony Kushner's prescient play, Homebody/Kabul, w as w ritten only shortly before September 11th. "The play takes place

in London, England and Kabul, Afghanistan just before and just after the American bombardment of the suspected terrorist

training camps in Khost, Afghanistan, August 1998. The f inal scene, Periplum, is set in London in the spring of 1999." [1] The

play is divided up into tw o acts. Act I is a lengthy monologue by a verbose housew ife named Homebody, w ho talks about

Afghanistan and her desire to go there. The plot in Homebody/Kabul takes a rather complex turn after Homebody's lengthy

monologue. In Acts II and III, the reader f inds out that Homebody's life came to an end in the most brutal w ay on the streets of

Kabul, w here she ventured by herself. Finding out about Homebody's death, her husband and daughter go to Afghanistan to

retrieve the body only to be given the runaround by the Taliban concerning the location of her body. While Homebody's

husband, Milton, gets high on opium and other narcotics w ith a British aid w orker, her daughter, Priscilla (w ho is full of doubt

about her mother's death) meets a Tajik Afghan Esperantist poet named Khw aja w ho helps her f ind out that her mother is

actually alive and w ell: faking her death in order to marry a "pious Muslim man of means." [2] Priscilla is told of Homebody's

reasoning: "She w ish to remain in Kabul, not to see you nor the father of you, her husband of the past." [3] Khw aja arranges

for Priscilla to meet the w ife that Homebody replaced, Mahala. Mahala corroborates the story that Homebody is in fact alive

and living w ith her Muslim husband. Mahala w ants Priscilla to take her back to London. Priscilla does not w ant to but is

eventually convinced to try to take Mahala back to London. For his help, Khw aja, also through much convincing, gives Priscilla

some of his Esperanto poem to deliver to a fellow Esperantist in London. When Priscilla, Milton, and Mahala are f inally ready to

depart from Afghanistan, the Taliban search their belongings and f ind the Esperanto poems in Priscilla's suitcase. The Taliban

say that they are not poems but Tajik information in codes concerning the placement of w eapons, and they claim that Khw aja

is a spy. Thinking Mahala has more papers, the Taliban threaten to kill her. Eventually talking the Taliban out of killing Mahala,

Priscilla and Milton are told that the story that Mahala told them about Homebody w as made up: "They have tell you this

w oman is w ife of Muslim man, Kabuli man w ho have marry dead British w oman, she have not die . . . This w oman is Pashtun

w oman, crazy w oman, w ho she is? She is doctor w ife, Doctor Qari Shah." [4] Before the three are allow ed to go free, they

are told that Khw aja has been arrested and executed. Almost a year later, w e f ind out that Mahala is living w ith Milton in the

same house that Homebody once lived in.

[2] As Jenny Spencer argues, much of the plot of Homebody/Kabul hinges on translation and the diff iculties surrounding it.

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[5] The need for translation serves as a plot device w here confusion can abound. But much more central to the play, the

need for translation is only one of the symptoms plaguing the tw o clashing cultures. Priscilla and Milton are not merely having

trouble f inding out w here Homebody is because they are having trouble getting a decent translation: the poor translations are

only symptomatic of the impossibility of translating one culture to another, performing cultural hybridity. It is in both the failure

and attempt of translation that, at least, some hope is born in this play. True, most meaning is lost in translation, but there is

something new that is created in the act of translating. In this play, Mahala's new life represents that new creation: the

byproduct of tw o cultures coming together. Homebody/Kabul recounts translation as tragedy, but from that tragedy springs

hope and grow th.

Translation, Minor Language and Hybridity

[3] In their chapter, "What is a Minor Literature?" in Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari discuss

Franz Kafka's "geopolitical triangle of German-Czech-Jew s" by noting how "people [in Prague] reproached [the Jew s] for not

being Czechs, and in Saaz and Eger, for not being Germans." [6] What this means is that Kafka w as in a very unique lingual

situation: he w as a minoritarian linguist. In an indirect response to Benjamin, Deleuze and Guattari discussed the

untranslatability of language. Instead of relying on the task of translators, being a Jew , living in Czechoslovakia and w riting in

German, Kafka w rote "minor literature:" "A minor literature does not come from a minor language; it is rather that w hich a

minority constructs w ithin a major language." [7] Deleuze and Guattari note the three characteristics of a minor literature and a

minoritarian linguist. First, for Kafka, w riting becomes an impossible activity, an impossible one to avoid, and it is also

impossible to w rite in German. [8] It is impossible for Kafka to w rite not in German because then he w ill feel cut off from his

German Czech territory. It is impossible for Kafka to w rite in German because then he w ill not be speaking to the masses but

only the oppressed minority. And it is impossible for Kafka not to w rite because, as an oppressed person, he must develop a

national consciousness by means of literature. Second, everything for a minoritarian linguist is political: "the family triangle

connects to other triangles—commercial, economic, bureaucratic, juridical—that determine its values." [9] And third,

everything w ithin a minor literature takes on a collective value. Because minor literature comes from a minority, there is not an

abundance of voices w here each voice can be heard separately. In this case, each voice takes on the voice of the masses.

And "because collective or national consciousness is 'often inactive in external life and alw ays in the process of break-

dow n,' literature f inds itself positively charged w ith the role and function of collective, and even revolutionary, enunciation."

[10] The minoritarian linguist, then, f inds it impossible to speak and not to speak in a major language, is alw ays political, and

alw ays speaks collectively. They have the unique position of subverting the major language and culture by using the major

language to w ork for their ow n purposes. This is a pow erful move that avoids the need for translation and the pitfalls that

accompany it. The author controls the original language. This admixture of minor culture and major language produces a

culturally and literally "hybrid" text.

[4] The idea of hybridity w orks nicely w ith the current conversations surrounding the play: there is a focus on geopolitics and

history. Spencer argues that translation becomes the point of contact betw een cultures and serves as a "broader trope for

contemporary geopolitical struggles." [11] Judith G. Miller also sees the global scope and conflict of the play. Miller argues that

the play gives off feelings of a murky international scene, a global future w ithout a vision and, "an inability to locate and name

the 'enemy.'" [12] Framji Minw alla examines the collision of a personal, private history and a sociopolitical, public history. [13]

A similar collision can be seen in M. Scott Phillips' argument that the play explores a cultural and political apocalypse as a

"binary opposition" is created "betw een a consumer-driven w estern imperialism and a misogynistic anti-w estern theocracy

represented by radical Islam." [14] The struggle of binaries can be seen further in Catherine Stevenson's argument that the

play constantly deals w ith the "central dialectical struggle betw een past and future, stasis and progress . . . [that helps to]

dramaticize acts of creative negation." [15] This article f its into the conversation by addressing aspects of geopolitical

hybridity through the trope of translation.

Homebody as a Minoritarian Linguist

[5] It needs a bit of explaining as to how Homebody is a minoritarian linguist. After all, Homebody is British and is addressing

us in English. Kafka, meanw hile, w as Jew ish and instead of w riting in Czech, the language used w here he lived, Kafka

w rote in German. Homebody's minoritarian position becomes the most obvious w hen she begins talking about the guidebook

to Afghanistan. For Homebody, her language is that of the "guidebook. Its foxed unfingered pages, forgotten w ords:

'Quizilbash.'" [16] Homebody is deterritorialized because her words come from another time. And though the place may be

the same physical location (England), it is diff icult to argue that late 20th century England is the same place as 17th century

England, from w here w ords like "gigantine" come. Thus, her native language of forgotten English w ords is deterritorialized by

time and, thus, by place. The language of 17th century England (metaphorically like Kafka's Czech) is subsumed by the

dominant language, 20th century English (metaphorically like Kafka's use of German).



[6] She, how ever, does not address us entirely in her native language of forgotten and made-up English w ords (like

"Quizilbash"). She tries to address us in modern English—creating a story and a minor literature that "doesn't come from a

minor language; it is rather that w hich a minority constructs w ithin a major language." [17] The resulting language that she

creates is a hybrid betw een forgotten and made-up English w ords and modern English that is structured around modif iers

and modifying clauses. She is "a person w ho uses w ords like gigantine," a nearly forgotten and obscure version of gigantic,

making her "impossible-to-clearly-comprehend." [18]

[7] Furthermore, her monologues spin to the political, because as Deleuze and Guattari say, "its cramped space forces each

individual intrigue to connect immediately to politics." [19] This same w ord, "Quizilbash," stirs up the feeling of something "So

lost; and also so familiar." [20] It is in this gesture of connecting the here and the there—by connecting that w hich is "lost" to

that w hich is "familiar"—that Homebody asserts individual agency:

The home (She makes the gesture) aw ay from home. Recognizable: not how vast but how crowded the

w orld is, consequences to everything: the Macedonians, marching east, one tribe displacing another... [21]

Homebody's life, even in the comfort of her home, her most natural environment, is thereby connected to the Macedonians.

That w hich is lost, "the home aw ay from home," is still connected to Homebody. And, in fact, as Homebody argues, her

actions today can even affect the past, as there are "consequences to everything." [22] This inevitability of the political

infused in her language is follow ed by one collective enunciation after another:

What after all is a child but the history of all that has befallen her, a succession of displacements, bloody,

beautiful? How could any mother not love the w orld? What else is love but recognition? Love's nothing to do

w ith happiness. Pow er has to do w ith happiness. Love has only to do w ith home.

Where stands the homebody, safe in her kitchen, on her culpable shore, suffering uselessly w atching others

perishing in the sea, w ringing her plump little maternal hands, oh, oh. Never joining the drow ning. Her feet,

neither rooted nor moving. The ocean is deep and cold and erasing. But how dreadful, really unpardonable,

to remain dry.

Look at her, look at her, she is so unforgivably dry. Neither here nor there. She does not drow n, she...

succumbs. To Luxury. She sinks. [23]

Homebody's minoritarian language becomes clear. She has created a hybrid language that is both political and speaks

collectively; how ever, Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of minoritarian linguists and literatures falls short. What I think Tony

Kushner seems to address that Deleuze and Guattari do not address in Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature is w hat happens

w hen Kafka, for example, is read in English and not in German, or more specif ically, w hat happens w hen a minoritarian

linguist, such as Homebody, is translated.

[8] In her home in London, w hen telling the dream-like tale of her affair w ith the Kabuli hat vendor, Homebody controls her

language. She speaks, as she describes it, "Elliptically. Discursively." [24] But once she is in Kabul, w here she must rely on

translations, her self-acknow ledged limited know ledge of Farsi makes lingual control unavoidable. Translation becomes,

The touch w hich does not understand is the touch w hich corrupts, the touch w hich does not understand

that w hich it touches w hich corrupts that w hich it touches, and w hich corrupts itself. [25]

In Kabul, Homebody becomes the child w ho, through translation, has stepped in front of the gaze of the public w indow ,

exposing her dislocations—exposing "the history of all that has befallen her, a succession of displacements, bloody,

beautiful." [26]

[9] Homebody is susceptible to these dislocations because, even though she is a minoritarian linguist, she cannot be a

pow erful minoritarian linguist in Kabul. What, how ever, is a minoritarian linguist? Minoritarian linguists w ould answ er the

follow ing questions "no," only because they have created their ow n language for themselves:

How many people today live in a language that is not their ow n? Or no longer, or not yet, even know their

ow n and know poorly the major language that they are forced to serve? [27]

The minor linguists, rather, create their ow n language by subverting "the major language that they are forced to serve," by

subverting it from w ithin.

Becoming "Homebody?"

Cain is the founder of a city as w ell as a fratricide, the father of the arts as w ell as the f irst person to usurp

God's pow er of determining mortality, the f irst person to usurp the role of the angel of death.



Tragedy is the annihilation from w hence new life springs the Nothing out of w hich Something is born.

Devastation can be a necessary prelude to a new kind of beauty. Necessary but alw ays bloody. [28]

[10] Cain serves as a reoccurring symbol of tragedy in Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul. As Kushner w rote in his essay,

"An Afterw ord," found after Homebody/Kabul, Cain represents a paradox of sorts. Even though he is the f irst murderer, the

first destroyer, the arts and all of its creations, sprung up through him. The resting place of Cain, as legend has it, is

somew here in Kabul. The tragedy of Cain, then, comes to symbolize the tragedy of Afghanistan. The tragedy of Cain is the

extended metaphor of w hich meaning is derived in this play. As, ultimately, an extended metaphor, this parable locates its

theme in the map of Kabul. Priscilla, having possession of her mother's guidebook tries to f ind the Grave of Cain. How ever,

her mother w rote a question mark next to Grave of Cain. Khw aja, Priscilla's guide, comments:

Yes. This says, not "Grave of Cain," but rather, "Grave of Cain?" She w as pursuing a rumor. On no off icial

map is there ever a question mark. This w ould be an entirely novel approach to cartography. The implications

are profound. To read on a map, instead of "Afghanistan," "Afghanistan?" It w ould be more accurate, but—."

[29]

The question mark is puzzling on a map because a map is supposed to be authoritative. Thus, the question mark denotes

uncertainty. The Grave of Cain becomes, not a definite place, but a rough idea. If the grave cannot be located w ith precision,

it may not exist, and therefore the nature of the grave itself is left in doubt. Reading Afghanistan as "Afghanistan?" dislocates

the very nature of the country. The country is not a set place, but a rough idea, one w ithout solid definition. So too, then, is

Homebody. If Homebody cannot be located w ith precision, she may no longer exist, and thus Homebody's nature is left in

doubt. Homebody is an amalgam of memories, artifacts she left behind, and rumors. She is impossible to locate and thus she

must be read w ith a question mark, for she is a shifting and indefinable idea, just like the Grave of Cain.

[11] Because of Homebody's physical transplantation, the plot hinges on interpretations and translations. Like the many literal

translations in the text, Homebody is a body w ho is f irst transplanted and then necessarily translated. Besides the translation

that w as needed due to her journey, w e are told by Priscilla that, "She w as a mother w ho demanded interpretation." [30]

Indeed, as the plot suggests, the w ord "Homebody" needs as much interpretation and translation as the story that is being

told about Homebody to Priscilla and Milton (through translation). So how exactly does Homebody become "Homebody?"

[12] At a October 24, 2002 lecture on translation, translators, and translating at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst

called "The White Company: The Construction of English Ethnicity in the Nineteenth Century," Robert Young carefully pointed

out (though he w as by no means the f irst to say it) that the respective Latin and Greek roots of the w ords translation and

metaphor have the same meaning: "to carry or bear across." (The Oxford English Dictionary show s that roots of both

w ords contain the verb "to transfer." Robert Young must have been acting as a bit of a translator himself, for only metaphor

has the root meaning "to bear, carry.") But he w ent further than other scholars by calling metaphor a "creative lie," implying

the same for translation.

[13] The key to metaphor, and thus translation, is that they are open signif iers that are socially and historically determined, and

they even afford an opening for agency. Of course, I am ignoring the "lie" inherent in these tw o w ords. There are countless

instances w here the lie is intentional (speaking of translations). There are also countless instances w here good-faith

attempts have been lies. It is these good-faith attempts that are interesting because they adhere to Foucault's famous maxim

—everything is not bad, but dangerous—for, "The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in w hich his

ow n language happens to be instead of allow ing his language to be pow erfully affected by the foreign tongue." [31] What

can be translatable then becomes a lie.

[14] In London, Homebody is a pow erful linguist w hose control of her ow n language f irmly helps her establish her ow n

identity. In some w ay, she performs her identity through language, but her language also performs her identity. She claims to

have no control over her speaking, saying that she has read too many books and they are responsible for her manner of

speech, how ever she makes it very clear that, besides one dreamy love affair, only books have broached her, books w hich

she freely read on her ow n. Since she acknow ledges that her speech might be diff icult to understand, she is constantly

rephrasing her ow n phrases. She acts as her ow n translator, translating "for readers w ho do not understand the original."

[32] Thus, she ensures that she is correctly understood, that nobody can read her incorrectly. How ever, one time she does

let something slide w ithout attempting a translation:

There is an old Afghan saying, w hich, in rough translation from the Farsi, goes: "The man who has patience

has roses. The man who has no patience has no trousers." I am not f luent in Farsi, of course, I read this, and

as I say it must be a rough translation. [33]

Unlike other times w hen the reader may question her meaning, she at least acknow ledges the question mark by attempting to



rephrase a line; here, the question mark remains. Though she may be able to remove, or at least acknow ledge, a question

mark in her version of English, w hen she faces a translation, the question mark is not even addressed.

[15] Therefore, in Afghanistan—w here 1) it is diff icult to tell a translation from a "creative lie," and 2) Homebody is not present

—she, her actions and her body are translated (by a number of translators w ith varying degrees of talent in translating)

w ithout the question mark being considered—how else can she be read other than "Homebody?"

[16] Though the United States is never the center of action, or even remotely close to it, Homebody/Kabul is about countries

like the United States, countries f illed w ith minoritarian linguists—hybridizers of language. The play, then, is about how bodies

w ho are constantly putting up a f ight against Universal Drift are read in translation. It is particularly revealing then that

Homebody is not even American. The United States' touch, "the American bombardment of the suspected terrorist training

camps in Khost, Afghanistan, August 1998"—"a touch w hich does not understand"—is translated so poorly that it confuses

those being touched to the point w here even different nations become indistinguishable. The United States, a country w hose

potential for being a minoritarian country of language and literature is great, becomes the "United States?": just as Homebody

—a minoritarian linguist—is translated to the point w here she becomes "Homebody?" "Homebody?" is a w avering idea: one

that cannot be pinned dow n and defined w ith any certainty.

[17] There is something w holly uncontrollable about the minoritarian linguist and Homebody, and this inevitable mistranslation

produces a shifting border that neither Homebody nor anybody else can understand. Therefore, a thick border has enveloped

Homebody: this deaf line produces "Homebody?"

Getting Swept Up in the "Universal Drift": Homebody in Kabul

...does that nebula know it nebulates? Most likely not. So my husband. It know s nothing, its nature is to

stellate and constellate and nebulate and add its heft and vortices and frequencies to the Universal Drift, un-

self-consciously effusing, effusing, gaseously effusing, and so my husband, and so not I, w ho seem

forever to be imploding and collapsing and am incapable it w ould seem of lending even this simple tale to the

Universal Drift, of telling this simple tale w ithout supersaturating my narrative w ith maddeningly infuriating or

more probably irritating synchitic expegeses. Synchitic expegeses. Jesus. [34]

[18] "Universal Drift" w orks like a dominant language that "un-self-consciously" pulls minor languages into "its heft and

vortices." The "drift" implies something almost nonchalant, but pow erful. Languages and people in the presence of a dominant

language are sw ept up. This is a universalizing gesture: one that negates difference, thus negating the particulars and

peculiarities of individuals and languages. Occasionally there are individuals w ho, w ith strong lingual control and play, can

avoid being sw ept up in the Universal Drift of language. Someone or some language that "implodes and collapses" may be

resistant to the Universal Drift, but at the price of or because of, a dislocation, w hich is "alw ays bloody." [35] This is the drive

behind the phrase "perform—or else" from Jon McKenzie. [36] Perform cultural lingual norms or be sw eep up in a bloody

dislocation. "Dislocation" comes from "dislocate" w ith its root meaning "to put out of place." Homebody is marked by

"supersaturating [her] narratives." In a w orld that does not understand her "synchitic expegeses," Homebody is dislocated to

the home. She is put out of place by her language and thus relegated to a space w here dangling modif iers and made up

w ords are allow ed. She is "redeployed." She is allow ed to have her ow n lingual rules in her house, out of the reach of the

public and its Universal Drift of language.

[19] The Oxford English Dictionary defines a "homebody" as "a person, etc., w ho prefers staying at home to going out or

traveling." [37] This is not the type of person w ho you w ould expect to say, "Oh I love the w orld! I love love love love the

w orld!" [38] Thus, w e are immediately led to question Homebody's status as a homebody. The home, for a homebody,

connotes a retreat from the outside w orld. The w orld, for the homebody, is divided, primarily, into a private inside and a public

outside. These spheres remain separate by choice. The homebody is one w ho is not forced into solitude but one w ho

"prefers" it. Thus, there must be something in the outside w orld that makes the homebody prefer the inside w orld, or the

benefits of the private, inside w orld must outw eigh the benefits of the public, outside w orld. It comes as no surprise, then, to

find the character called "Homebody" situated in the home. What is surprising is her obsession w ith a land so far aw ay, her

obsession w ith Kabul. The obsession does, as she says, take the form of reading and research, and this type of solitary

activity is in line w ith a homebody. [39] But for a w oman w ho has "never strayed so far from the unlit to the spotlight,"

Homebody certainly spends a lot of time in both the literal and f igurative spotlight. [40]

[20] What becomes troubling for Homebody is that though she is in her house, the very place that she should theoretically

"prefer" to be, she clearly fantasizes about being somew here else—in some other place, in some other time. Homebody says,

"The Present is always an aw ful place to be." [41] Her object of attention, then, becomes both the past and Afghanistan. This

past and Afghanistan are dangerous places for her. Homebody understands the safety of her present situation: "Where

stands the homebody, safe in her kitchen, on her culpable shore, suffering uselessly, w atching others perishing in the sea,



w ringing her plump little maternal hands, oh, oh. Never joining the drow ning." [42] In this "safe" place, she "live[s] w ith the

w orlds utter indifference." [43] But she w ants this to change. She fantasizes about "joining the drow ning." The tale that she

tells is w hen she visited the "holocaustal effacement" of Kabul. [44]

[21] Homebody—the protagonist in Tony Kushner's most recent play, Homebody/Kabul, w hich is about a w oman w ho goes

over to Afghanistan and is reportedly murdered—first performs this implosion and collapse for us in London, not on the

streets of w ar-torn Kabul, but in her "comfortable chair, in [her] pleasant room." [45] Her language is unique: a pastiche of

eclectic w ords. After Act I, Scene I, Homebody, w e have discovered, has performed this same implosion and collapse again,

but in Kabul—"a gossipy city...full of w indow s." [46] Aw ay from the safety of her home, and in the city w here the Universal

Drift is public, open, and transparent like a w indow , Homebody has intentionally dislocated herself. She left the safety of her

ow n home and w ent to Kabul. Upon travelling to Kabul, she let her body be mangled in such a w ay that Kabul "ripped her

open" to reveal "her fucking secrets." [47] This is the "or else" of not "performing" normalcy. Her dislocations are revealed in

the gaze of the public:

In a w orld ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split betw een active/male and

passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy onto the female f igure, w hich is styled

accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role w omen are simultaneously looked at and displayed, w ith their

appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so to-be-looked-at-ness. [48]

In front of the "w indow s" of Kabul, Homebody is framed. She has allow ed herself to take on the passive female role w ithout

agency. In Kabul, a male-dominated society, she gave up her one pow erful tool: her language. Her language made her a

pow erful linguist in London. But here in Kabul, she is ripped open by others because she is not f luent in Farsi. She could not

control the image behind the w indow . She lacked agency because she could not speak. She w as silenced, and therefore,

could only take on an exhibitionist role. Her body, thus, becomes no more than a text to be read by a male doctor in dire need,

himself, of a translation:

The conoid tubercle of the left clavicle w as found to have been traumatically separated from the conacoid

process of the left scapula follow ing severe damage to the conoid ligament . . . After dislocation of the

humerus form the glenohumeral joint, there w as separation and consequent calamitous exsanguination from

the humeral stump. [49]

The detailed analysis of w hat happened to Homebody is "traumatically separated" from meaning because of the doctor's

reliance on a language that is understood by only a select few . Though the doctor is speaking in English, the language is a

hybrid language of modern English and scientif ic, anatomical terms, unknow n to the vast majority of English speakers. Like the

Esperanto that appears throughout Kushner's play, these anatomical terms are meant to serve as universal referents. What

the Esperanto poet recognizes, and that the doctor does not, is that these referents are not universally understood. In the

same w ay, Homebody is just as "traumatically separated" from the Afghani population as is the doctor speaking to

Homebody's husband and daughter in English. Because she is not f luent in Farsi, as she admits early on in the play, she has

no w ay to control the image behind the w indow . Her performance is a series of pow erless speech acts. She is left exposed

to the translation of others. Those in the w orld of w indow s read her and not the other w ay around. Whatever has really

happened to her does not matter, but the "Homebody" that is created through language in London is out of her grasp in Kabul.

That Homebody has a question mark on her. We must read Homebody like the map of Afghanistan is read in the play:

"Afghanistan?" and "Homebody?" This paper and the play are about how bodies w ho are constantly putting up a f ight against

Universal Drift—or how minor/minoritarian linguists—are read in translation and how the result is "a succession of

displacements, bloody, beautiful." In translation, minor linguists suffer the consequences of not performing. They suffer the

"or else" of the mantra "perform—or else."

Performing Islam

I am reading the Quran again. For all those terrible years, I w as too angry. I am myself becoming Muslim

again. [50]

[22] Una Chaudhuri and Elinor Fuchs recently edited a book entitled Land/Scape/Theater. This collection of essays imagines

the landscape as a new spatial paradigm for the theater. Inherent in the idea of landscape is the idea of representing space

and place. Landscape is a useful concept over "space" and "place" because landscape "is inside space, one might say, but

contains place." [51] In her chapter, "Land/Scape/Theory," Chaudhuri explains how invoking the landscape helped bolster

nationalist ideologies:

...landscape w as pressed into service of nationalist ideology by giving 'face' to the nation, a face suff iciently

distinguishable from those of other nations and suff iciently simplif ied so as to be easily recognizable and

'quotable' as needed. [52]



We have already seen how the Grave of Cain brought confusion to Kabul's landscape. Kushner clearly plays off the above

idea by ironically giving "face" to the opening scene in Act Tw o. Kushner creates a landscape that says that the scene can

only take place in Taliban-run Kabul, but at the same time, it is 'suff iciently indistinguishable from other nations.' Kabul and

Afghanistan become as indistinguishable as the United States and England:

On a street in Kabul.

Priscilla is in her burqa, trying to read the guidebook's small map through the burqa's grille, holding it

close, changing angles so as to find the strongest light.

A group or women pass by, all shrouded head to toe in burqas, whispering. [53]

Giving "face" to the nation and to Islam in the presence of the oppressive Taliban regime becomes the shrouding of it for

Kushner. In the Kabuli landscape, Priscilla is trying to read a landscape (the map). But even the authoritative map cannot be

translated in this city. It is diff icult to read the map, for Priscilla is trying "to f ind the strongest light." The burqa is literally

shrouding the landscape. Under Taliban rules, Islam is conflated w ith confusion and shrouded landscapes:

...can you tell me w here the Ladies Hospital is. Or the Red Crescent off ices, or the U.N. compound, it's all

turned around somehow . [54]

Under the shroud of the Taliban, the geography of Kabul is unreadable and "all turned "Even space becomes diff icult to

navigate in that society.

[23] It is only w hen the shroud is removed, in this play, that language can again resurface and w ork to form a strong identity.

It is only after Mahala removed her burqa that she w as able to become Muslim:

...In the same room as Act One. Mahala is dressed like a modern English woman. She looks very different.

She has been reading. [55]

Identity is w rapped up in language. It is only by reading that Mahala can assume her Muslim identity. She says, "The Book is

so beautiful, even in English. In Arabic its beauty is inexpressible." [56] As Mahala says herself, her English has improved

since she returned to London w ith Milton. [57] And now in Homebody's house, Mahala has "examined [Homebody's] library.

Such strange books. I spend many hours." [58] The play has come full circle at this point. Homebody, the minoritarian linguist,

began the play, and now Mahala, the minoritarian linguist (a native Farsi speaker w ho speaks in a language not her ow n,

English), concludes the play. Mahala has been able to "[plant] all [her] dead" only in a place w here she can read and "subvert

the language from w ithin." [59] Just as Homebody could only assume her identity by playing w ith language, Mahala can only

assume her identity by playing the pow erful minoritarian linguist after, or because of, a dislocation. Homebody dislocated from

London to Kabul; Mahala dislocated from Kabul to London.

The Dislocation of Culture

[24] Dislocations also have lasting effects because, unlike a break, w here something is severed, the dislocation can many

times continue functioning as it once had (only that some movements are more aw kw ard or painful than others); for example,

w hen a colonial pow er rules a colonized land, or even w hen the United States sets up puppet governments in the Middle

East, the natives are merely being ruled in a manner w hich addresses their needs no better than the ineff icient or corrupt

rulers before the colonizers. Thus, in most cases, a colonial pow er's rule constitutes a dislocation rather than a break.

[25] And so "Homebody?" becomes the dislocation that pains the elbow , that houses the Afghani humerus and the Western

ulna. "Homebody?" becomes the point of pain and misunderstanding. "Homebody?" does not break relations betw een the

Afghanis and their Western counterparts, but their relationship continues, strained, more mangled than ever. "Homebody?'s"

dislocation, how ever, produces a new life for Mahala, from w hose hybrid identity springs a bastion of hope in a play of pain.

The extended metaphor of a dislocation w here tw o cultures have to live side by side w ith uneasiness w orks w ithin the larger

parable of translation. Tw o languages coexist and neither can truly f ind home w ithin the other, but through translation,

something new , a hybrid creation, can be born w hich is decidedly not the original, but says something about both languages,

and ultimately, both cultures.

Notes

[1] Tony Kushner, Homebody/Kabul (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2002), 5.



[2] Ibid., 69.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 131.

[5] In "Performing Translation in Kushner's Homebody/Kabul," presented at the University of Massachusetts, April 2004,

Jenny S. Spencer noted the absolute centrality of translation to any understanding of Kushner's play. See also Jenny

Spencer, "Performing Translation in Contemporary Anglo-American Drama," Theatre Journal 59 (2007): 389-410.

[6] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, trans. Dana Polan (Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 1986), 11.

[7] Ibid., 16.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 17.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Spencer, "Performing Translation," 393.

[12] Judith G. Miller, "New Forms for New Conflicts: Thinking about Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul and the Théatre du

Soleil's Le Dernier Caravansérail," Contemporary Theatre Review 16.2 (2006): 212.

[13] See Framji Minw alla, "Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul: Staging History in a Post-Colonial World," Theater 33.1 (Winter

2003): 29-43.

[14] M. Scott Phillips, "The Failure of History: Kushner's Homebody/Kabul and the Apocalyptic Context," Modern Drama 47.1

(Spring 2004): 1.

[15] Catherine Stevenson, "'Seek for Something New ': Mothers, Change, and Creativity in Tony Kushner's Angels in America,

Homebody/Kabul, and Caroline, or Change," Modern Drama 48.4 (Winter 2005): 758.

[16] Kushner, Homebody/Kabul, 27.

[17] Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, 16.




[21] Ibid., 27.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 28.

[24] Ibid., 12.

[25] Ibid., 28.

[26] Ibid., 27.



[29] Ibid., 63.

[30] Ibid., 115.

[31] Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator," in The Translation Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 2000), 22.



[32] Ibid., 15.



[35] Ibid., 18.

[36] The concept of "perform--or else" is explored in great detail: John McKenzie, Perform or Else: From Discipline to

Performance (New York: Routledge, 2001).

[37] All dictionary definitions herein are taken from Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.

[38] Ibid., 12.

[39] Ibid., 9.

[40] Ibid., 12.

[41] Ibid., 11.

[42] Ibid., 27-8.

[43] Ibid., 12.

[44] Ibid., 25.

[45] Ibid., 9.

[46] Ibid., 51.

[47] Ibid., 49.

[48] Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan Literary Theory: An Anthology

(Malden: Blackw ell Publishers, 1999) 589.


[50] Ibid, 134.

[51] Elinor Fuchs and Una Chaudhuri, eds. Land/Scape/Theater (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 3.

[52] Ibid., 23-4.


[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid., 136.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Ibid., 136.

[58] Ibid., 139.

[59] Ibid., 139.

susan bennett minoritarian linguist in translation kushner's homebody

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