'No Replacements Found': Multilingual Memory in the Work of Ramil Niyazov-Adyldzhyan

• In Event: Transnational and Translingual Poetics

Abstract

A prominent feature of the work of Russophone Uyghur poet Ramil Niyazov-Adyldzhyan is its multilingualism. Frequently switching language and script, his poetry can be read as a form of social mimesis, a reflection of the polyglottic reality of Kazakhstan and the post-Soviet world more broadly and a means of recuperating the multiple pasts and presents entangled in these spaces. At the same time, code-switching performs important aesthetic functions in his poetry. This paper focuses in particular upon the interaction between sound and script in a selection of recent poems, which it argues do not simply reflect the multilingual context in which they were written but enact it, raising questions about what it means not only to write but also to read poetry translingually and in a globalised age.

Author

• Isobel Palmer, U of Birmingham (UK)