This paper discusses Leila Aboulela's search for the kind of English appropriate for depicting the multiple cultures, languages and knowledge bases in which both she and her protagonist in The Translator are inserted. It demonstrates that she does this by capturing the rich detail of daily life and material culture in her fiction and that one of the devices for this capture is the rhetoric of metonymy. What emerges in the paper is that solid objects in Aboulela's fiction speak a different language from the most obvious literary use of deep symbols and profound metaphors. They say something about the texture of life and the loss suffered by those who have to negotiate between diverse cultures and identities. We see that migrant writers have transported worlds and cultures and knowledges into the West, along with their suitcases and boxes, recipes and accents. In other words, while Sammar, Aboulela's protagonist in the novel, is employed to translate between English and Arabic, the more subtle translation happens within the English language and between different cultures. In addition to "The Translator", this argument is consolidated with a brief examination of Aboulela's prize-winning short story, The Museum.