Although Mikhail Bakhtin-s study of the novel does not focus in any systematic way on the role that translation plays in the processes of novelistic creation and dissemination, when he does broach the topic he grants translation''a disproportionately significant role in the emergence and constitution of literature. The contributors to this volume, from the US, Hong Kong, Finland, Japan, Spain, Italy, Bangladesh, and Belgium, bring their own polyphonic experiences with the theory and practice of translation to the discussion of Bakhtin-s ideas about this topic, in order to illuminate their relevance to translation studies today. Broadly stated, the essays examine the art of translation as an exercise in a cultural re-accentuation (a transferal of the original text and its characters to the novel soil of a different language and culture, which inevitably leads to the proliferation of multivalent meanings), and to explore the various re-accentuation devices employed over the span o
