2. Travelers in Translation

Of “Liminal Spaces” and “Literary Contact Zones”

Laura A. Zander

Forum: Translation, Migration, Narrative

History and Theory 64, no. 3 (2025)

Despite the global visibility of the migrant as a key figure in discussions of human rights, the contours of the migrant as a subject of rights still remain unspecified. However, global human rights fictions, which are often rooted in autobiographical and biographical accounts, offer alternative subjectivities by producing narrative forms that contrast with dominant “migration literatures.” Literature emerges as a contact zone where migrant voices engage with host cultures, facilitating dialogues that challenge stereotypes and reshape cultural imaginaries. In these spaces, language becomes the central medium to navigate and negotiate liminality. Processes of translation are the most obvious means of this negotiation, as translation bridges personal experience, political ideologies, and social imaginaries. By translating precarious migrant experiences into narratives, literature reconfigures the migrant as a central figure of human rights while also challenging dominant political discourses. Helon Habila's 2019 novel, Travelers, exemplifies these dynamics by mapping migrancy through a network of interconnected characters whose fates illuminate the complexity of migrant experiences and challenge received notions of migrancy. As individual narratives intersect and transform into a collective story, Travelers reflects the potential of literary contact zones to mediate cultural exchange and envision alternative migrant subjectivities. By moving beyond tropes of cultural clash and identity struggles, such narratives reimagine migration and its connection to human rights.