An unnamed female interpreter moves from New York to The Hague to work at the International Criminal Court. She inhabits a world of controlled neutrality, translating the testimonies of victims and the defense of a former president accused of war crimes. As she bridges the linguistic gap between the perpetrator and the judicial record, the boundary between her professional detachment and her private life thins. She navigates a fraught new romance and the aftermath of a local street assault, finding that the precision required by her job masks the inherent instability of human communication and moral certainty.
Readers interested in the politics of international justice and the mechanics of language will find value in this clinical look at complicity. The book attracts those who prefer internal tension over action, focusing on how individuals position themselves within institutional structures. A reader finishes the text with a heightened awareness of how easily personal identity can be subsumed by the words of others and the difficulty of maintaining an objective stance in a world defined by systemic violence.
Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2021
- Language
- EN
