There is also the internal politics of how a work is situated in the ideological culture of its own language. Translators frequently slip into the role of cultural ambassadors, persuasively convincing readers of the riches their language brings to the rest of humanity, with the potential to reshape its image in the global arena. Translations in turn create impressions of a language’s ideological and linguistic culture in the minds of its readers. Their historical relationship and their relative balance of power frequently come to bear on how a translation is published, received and read. There is the external politics of the two languages between which the exchange takes place.
There are also finer political considerations. So deciding what gets translated and broadcast to another culture, which works deserve that prestige, is often a deliberate political choice.
Many times, translation itself confers prestige on a work. Translation is at its core an act of provocation and influence, seeding new ideas in a different language and culture. There is no question that literary translation is political.
