A Symphony of Language and Identity: Ann Leckie’s Translation State
Readers are not likely to pick up Ann Leckie’s new science fiction novel, Translation State, in anticipation of a legal drama, but treaties and jurisdiction and justice are most certainly at the novel’s core. What begins with the resolution of a will, in a fashion almost as dramatic as Knives Out (or, at least, Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero”), becomes a deeper, introspective look at what makes someone human, what it means to be alone in the universe, and how sometimes that loneliness has a solution in the most unexpected places.
When Enae’s Grandmaman dies, sie isn’t sure what fate will hold for hir. Enae has been Grandmaman’s caretaker for all of hir adult life, after all. No one in the family realizes, however, that Grandmaman had no fortune; in fact she sold their family name to a wealthy and ambitious person looking to gain what an older family name could allow. This new cousin (by law) has no reason for Enae to stay around, not when others might question who is the rightful heir to their name. Instead, Enae is provided with a job that will allow hir to lead a life of luxury.
Except that Enae has always done hard work, and made hirself useful. After being scolded for so long by Grandmaman over anything frivolous, Enae finds that the job sie has been given is interesting enough, and sie decides to pursue it to the best of hir abilities. Sie has been tasked with tracking down a 200 years past fugitive: a Presger Translator—aliens who look human, but who somehow speak for the very alien Presger. Why this particular Presger Translator fled or where they went, no one has yet been able to determine. Enae is told that sie should stop in at the offices in multiple planetary systems and perfunctorily check their records, not expecting to find anything. But Enae becomes more invested in the mystery, and when sie finally finds the clues sie is looking for, things go in a very different direction than Enae could ever have expected.
Enae is one of three point-of-view characters in the book. The chapters alternate between hir perspective (in third person), a second third-person perspective of Reet, an adoptee who is embraced by a cultural association looking for a lost heir of their people; and Qven, a very alien first-person narration that describes a childhood, and Qven’s growing dismay at the duties required by adulthood. At first, the three perspectives all seem quite separate. Reet’s growing understanding that the Siblings of Hikipu may not just be a cultural society. The Hikipi are an oppressed minority, whose traditions and language were, at points, forbidden by the larger, ruling Phen ethnic group. Eager to overthrow their colonizers, the Hikipi are rebelling, and the Phen push back—and the Siblings may be connected, in some way, to conspiracy theorist insurgents. Qven’s upbringing, which involves dissecting and sometimes eating fellow youth, is the most foreign, but as the chapters continue, it’s clear that Qven’s perspective provides information relevant to Reet and Enae’s journeys.