Building on certain concepts of language, translation, and hospitality formulated by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, this essay aims to establish a relationship between Derrida's consideration of the translation of the French term hôte-a word that designates both the host and the guest-and the work of translators. The first part explores how the idea of the language of the hôte influenced Derridean thinking and brought forward, from early on, the issue of translation. The second part deals with the translation itself of the term hôte, as emphasized by Derrida in his own reading of Camus's short story L'hôte, as well as with the translator's relationship as hôte of the Other's text. The aim is to show that the discussion of the translation of hôte stages the impossibility of an unconditional hospitality and unveils the relationships through which meaning is formed, in a play of multiple languages that interact in the translation process.
translation; hospitality; Jacques Derrida