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Gregor Samsa’s Pagkagimata (Awakening) in Bikol: A Becoming-Minor in Translation

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Kristian Cordero’s translation of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis instantiates what the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari call minor literature. Preferring the Bikol term Pagkagimata—the literal event of Gregor Sama’s becoming-animal in the novel as title of the translation and the utilization of the Rinconada Bikol language for the transformed Samsa—Cordero has typified a perspective of translation that challenges the popular view of fluent translation from the source text to the target language. Exemplifying the concept of becoming-minor of Deleuze and Guattari and deploying Lawrence Venuti’s notion of the “remainder,” An Pagkagimata ni Gregor Samsa exhibits a deterritorialization of Bikol language and reveals what translation is in practice—an ideology and utopia. With this Deluezio-Guattarian perspective of Cordero’s translation an alternative way of framing questions surrounding identity, particularly of Bikolness, is proffered that is, as an invention for a people-to-come.
Language: English
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7151000626
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