Why controversies around cultural appropriation and identity politics should not end translations The act and the art of translation require the permission to transcend borders, the permission to make mistakes and the permission to be repeated. Mar 14, 2021 · 05:30 pm American poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol in Washington DC. | Patrick Semansky /AFP In 399 AD, Faxian – a monk in China’s Jin Dynasty – went on a pilgrimage to the Indian subcontinent to collect Buddhist scriptures. Returning after 13 years, he spent the rest of his life translating those texts, profoundly altering Chinese worldviews and changing the face of Asian and world history.