Across the Lines presents the image of the traveller as translator in the modern world, constantly negotiating between world, place and image. This is a world in which the translator too is a traveller. The book explores the nomadic dimension to translation activity and sees translators as key figures in nomadic representations of late modernity. What does it mean to be endlessly travelling between languages and cultures in translation activity? Does human translation still have a role to play in the context of globalisation, the rise of English as a world language and the revival of interest in machine translation? How is language difference and translation dealt with in a travel industry that aims to minimise risk for the traveller while still promising the different and the unexpected?

The future of language, translation and travel is explored through science fiction representations of translator-travellers and the consequences for language developments in cybertravel. To minimise the language dimension to travel experience as has so often been done in critical writing on travel is to do a grave disservice to the complexity of the cultural experience within and between languages. Across the Lines argues that on a planet that is suffering a constant erosion of its language base, it is necessary to consider how travelling practices might highlight and enhance language awareness rather than systematically treat language difference as an unacceptable risk to the increasingly monolingual bubble of global tourism.