The desire for utopia is not only universal but also perennial, as the prospect of a better society lies always ahead, at the end of an ever-receding future in front of us, the end of a new millennium. From the biblical Garden of Eden, Plato’s Republic, to the long list of literary utopias, there is a rich tradition of imagining the best commonwealth in Western philosophy, literature, and political theory. But is utopia accessible through conceptual as well as linguistic translatability? Is utopia translatable across the gap of cultural differences? Before trying to answer these questions, however, let us first consider utopia in the West. Where is that utopian country at which Wilde saw humanity always landing and always setting sail to? In what context did it arise, and what does it look like? We must first search for utopia and find its most salient features before we can argue with any degree of assurance whether its core concept transcends the specific boundaries of languages and cultural traditions.
