Exactly What I Said: Translating Words and Worlds

"You don't have to use the exact same words.... But it has to mean exactly what I said." Thus began the ten-year collaboration between Innu elder and activist Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue and Memorial University professor Elizabeth Yeoman that produced the celebrated Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive, an English-language edition of Penashue's journals, originally written in Innu-aimun during her decades of struggle for Innu sovereignty.

Exactly What I Said: Translating Words and Worlds reflects on that collaboration and what Yeoman learned from it. It is about naming, mapping, and storytelling; about photographs, collaborative authorship, and voice; about walking together on the land and what can be learned along the way. Combining theory with personal narrative, Yeoman weaves together ideas, memories, and experiences--of home and place, of stories and songs, of looking and listening--to interrogate the challenges and ethics of translation.

Examining what it means to relate whole worlds across the boundaries of language, culture, and history, Exactly What I Said offers an accessible, engaging reflection on respectful and responsible translation and collaboration.