America’s undimmed global culture
Jul 13,2021 - Last updated at Jul 13,2021
NEW YORK — Amanda Gorman’s remarkable performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at US President Joe Biden’s inauguration touched millions. That was reason enough for a leading Dutch publisher to commission a prominent novelist to prepare a translation. But the choice of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, an International Booker Prize-winning novelist who is white and identifies as nonbinary, provoked an immediate protest by black activists in The Netherlands. They demanded that Gorman, an African-American, be translated by a black person. Picking a white translator caused one of the protesters “pain”. Rijneveld withdrew from the project.