The magazine is generally aimed at readers engaged in post-colonial studies and has a wide selection of essays, interviews, reviews and instances of creative writing coming from authors as far apart as Southern Africa, the Caribbean, India and Indonesia - in other words, work extending beyond the Western World. This edition is concerned with translation and offers examples of translated work in bilingual settings, theories about literary translation and essays on languages and cultures and their interaction and relationships.

Far from being yet another magazine about translation, Issue No. 40 opens up perspectives of the cultural weighting of translating communication into and out of non-European language. It looks at the difference between English (in this case) and other languages in an increasingly globalised world and questions the hegemony of Western values, experience and theories of translation. In this issue, many of the conclusions reached tie in with post-colonialist approaches in that translation is seen as an instrument of (neo)colonialism where local values are subverted and converted, and where ideologies are imposed and exposed.)

The interview with the Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o (5-10), is particularly interesting in the idea about the role of translation as a liberation process of national and regional cultural self-expression. While English (or Portuguese or French) may be used as a target language in translations from African languages, the call is for translations between the African languages themselves in order to enhance inter-African understanding and cooperation without going through any European medium.

This theory of the liberating practice of translation is again aired and endorsed in Shibani Phukan’s article, «Towards an Indian Theory of Translation» (27-31). The magazine then offers several propositions of cross-cultural translation practices, such as Theo Herman’s «Translation, Equivalence and Intertextuality» (39-41) and Susan Bassnett’s «Judging Translation» (42-44). There is a thought-provoking article by Lise Smith, «Dance and Translation» (33-37) which goes further into connecting and translating interpretive expressions. Practical examples include translations into English from languages such as Indonesian, Chinese and Urdu.

The magazine also has an extensive review section on recent publications dealing with translation studies and with translations of world literature coming from other than Western sources.

What is so interesting about this edition of Wasafiri is the discussion about the transforming nature of translation, whereby the translator’s presence is a reality and where his/her intent may be thinly disguised as one to subject the text to or liberate it from hidden agendas.