Translated Accounts

A Novel

James Kelman

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Since the publication of How late it was how late, James Kelman has been working on Translated Accounts. The novel is set in an unnamed territory or country that appears to be under military rule. It is narrative in the first person, but the narrators remain anonymous, as do most of the other characters. The language used is an atypical English form, but akin to the basic translation that might appear within a department of an overseas 'foreign office'. Perhaps someone transcribed first-hand accounts of certain incidents, events and states of mind, as narrated by participants in the struggle and then passed on the transcriptions for translation; or perhaps the accounts were simply translated first hand into English and edited later. In either case the results were dispatched to a more senior civil servant who later handed them over to an appropriate state agency.