FOREIGN VOICES

About the Book

"Today's fiction is increasingly populated by multilingual urban societies in all their rich cultural variety," contends Bernard Botes Krüger, making a persuasive case that "readers need to 'hear' authentic sounding dialogue from the mouths of foreign-language characters-something which mere translations into standard English can never adequately accomplish." The concept of foreign-language dialogue in fiction is not new; many accomplished authors of the past have used a variety of subtle techniques to help their readers understand instances of 'foreign' dialogue. However, those techinues have never been thoroughly isolated and examined-until now. Using Britain's 'Colonial Era' literature as a starting point in this work, the author discusses and systematically catagorizes every type of 'device' used in the past, assembling in the process a veritible toolbox of techniques which aspiring writers can implement to enrich their multilingual dialogue.

About the Author

BERNARD BOTES KRUGER is a fifth-generation descendant of the legendary Anglo-Boer War president Paul Kruger. For most of his life the author lived in the turmoil and conflict that has dominated the history of South Africa. Born in 1952, he spent his formative years in a rural area that was designated a part of the Zulu homeland. At the age of eighteen Mr. Kruger was incarcerated in a Pretoria military prison for his refusal to perform compulsory military service in that country’s ‘terrorist’ war, and was held in solitary confinement for fifteen months.
Having lived in the United States since 1986, Mr. Kruger acquired citizenship in 2001. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Africa and a master’s from Warnborough University (Ireland).