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Katie Kitamura's Intimacies Is an Elegant Dance Between a Translator and a War Criminal
By Hamilton Cain
The narrator of Intimacies, Katie Kitamura’s new novel, comes to us with a minimum of backstory. An only child, she’s traded New York for The Hague in the aftermath of her father’s death and her mother’s move to Singapore. Multilingual, she works as a translator for the World Court, speaking in English and French for defendants charged with heinous crimes, among them a war criminal.
As in A Separation, her previous novel, Kitamura digs deep into the quixotic nature of marriage, whether a person can ever truly know another. The work of a relationship is serious business, the prosecution of war crimes even graver.
The narrator embraces her new role: “If a joke was made it was the interpreter’s job to communicate the humor or attempt at humor; similarly, when something was said ironically it was important to indicate that the words were not to be taken at face value.” Translation, then, is less a linear progression and more a winding journey, twisted by abrupt forks and dead ends. In crystalline prose, Kitamura probes the labyrinths of language and the riddles of our humanity.
As with all labyrinths, a Minotaur lurks at the heart. The narrator is assigned to translate for a West African “former president” accused of ethnic cleansing. He’s undeniably charismatic. Kitamura is drawn to seductions, sexual and otherwise; and this monster works his charm on her narrator, compromising her psychologically and eventually her translations, too.
Love, it turns out, is also suspect. When her relationship with her lover deteriorates, the narrator throws herself into the trial. The further she ventures into the case, the cloudier her ethical clarity becomes; and she fears the former president is playing her like a violin. She feels grounded only when a brave 20-year-old eyewitness recounts the murders of her father and brothers. “Her voice remained low and firm,” the narrator observes. “She spoke with great deliberation, so that each word was like a link in a chain and the entire thing held fast, even as it moved across languages.”
(Adapted from https://www.oprahdaily.com)
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