She who awakens... to the other in the text A conversation with Sarah Gurcel, the French translator of The Night Watchman

A translator and an actress, Sarah Gurcel lets the words of others flow through her as she recreates multiple dialogues and points of view. This interview focuses on the politics of Indian assimilation and the challenge for the translator to negotiate between the political purpose of the source text – Erdrich refuses to make the Ojibwe words explicit – and the didactic purpose of the translation. But as much as cultural otherness, it is stylistic difference that must be highlighted.