In Translation: Blurring the Line Between the Real and the Ludicrous

Blurring the Line Between the Real and the Ludicrous

On Translating Belal Fadl’s ‘Um Mimi’

Osama Hammad in Conversation with Tugrul Mende

This December 15, Dar Arab is set to publish Belal Fadl’s The Completely True Tales of Um Mimi and Shari The Adulterer, brought to English by first-time translator Osama Hammad. This darkly humorous coming-of-age is set in a grittily, over-the-top, darkly funny 1990s Cairo. It was originally published in Arabic in 2021 and longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2022.

 Here, Hammad talks about how he came to translate this novel, the challenges of translating humor, and what makes this novel so special. You can read an excerpt of the novel here at ArabLit.

This is your first book-length translation. First, congratulations! Second, what was your starting point? Was Belal Fadl involved in the translation?

Osama Hammad: Thank you! I always wanted to translate, even if I didn’t study translation. I decided to make this shift around 2021-22, and I was always drawn to the idea of translating books, novels in particular. First, I applied to a professional program at the AUC in subtitling and journalistic translation. Then I started making book samples to pitch different publishers, and it led to the publication of Um Mimi.

The book came out in 2021. Do you remember reading this novel for the first time and why you decided to translate it?

OH: Oh, you could see me with a big smile while I was reading this novel. I mean, I really enjoyed reading it; it was just so funny most of the way through. It was also relatable, since I too was a student who wasn’t originally from Cairo. When moved to Cairo to study, I lived in a flat with ten other people, and at some point, I lived around characters who used similar language to Um Mimi’s. I had some similar experiences to the ones in the novel—not, of course, the full adventure—but it felt somehow relatable. This was part of the reason I wanted to translate it, the relatability. The second was that I was a regular reader of Belal’s articles. His articles were the ones I started with before reading anything else in the paper, and I watched almost all his movies. So, I don’t know why, but it made sense to me to translate it.

After I decided to translate the novel, I approached Sawad Hussain, because there was a mentorship program, but I think at that point it was full. She referred to me to Marcia, who also edited the novel, and she published the first excerpt in October 2022.

Then I started the process of pitching it to different publishers, but in that it was my first time, I wasn’t familiar with the process, so I pitched to a random assortment of publishers. I didn’t have any idea where to go or who would be interested, so I started  searching for publishers who had published previous works of Arabic literature in translation. Finding a publisher took a long time, and at one point I considered giving up.

Then I pitched it to Dar Arab, and they were enthusiastic about publishing this novel. I reached out to them, I think, at the end of the last year, and now the novel is coming out this month.

You read a lot—how does this book stand out for you, among Belal Fadl’s written works, and what role does it play on the rest of the Cairo literary landscape? How is it similar to & different from the other books out there?

OH: I think Um Mimi occupies a unique position; for its descriptive insights into Cairo, some have likened it to Mahfouz. But it’s not just unique because of the language, but also because of the characters and their environment. These are people who live on the margins, and they are often swept under the carpet. It tells the story of what people might do to survive and it observes their lives and tries to understand without passing moral judgments. Most novels find it more convenient to discuss or depict the lives and struggles of the middle class, which are real, and also more relatable to most readers. It surprised me when I read the reviews by how many people were in denial of the presence of such characters and lives.

Also, I haven’t read a lot of novels that are in this over-the-top style. There are some writers who might include similarly graphic language, but not a lot because it’s difficult, I think. There are many reasons for that, including censorship.

Humor plays such an important role here; how did you work to convey this in the English? Were there aspects of the humor that you had to adapt, because they were only legible in an Egyptian context? And how can you tell if you’ve gotten the humor right?

OH: Belal’s style mixes classical Arabic with Egyptian Arabic. There are verses from the Quran, as well as what you might call Christian or biblical Arabic. Part of what makes it interesting, and what also makes it difficult to translate, is that this linguistic cocktail means it’s rich in expressions and full of cultural references. Then he brings in the profanity, the biting language, and his over-the-top descriptions, as well as sometimes jarring interactions between characters who have different backgrounds and belong to different social classes.

Humor is always difficult to translate, because the point of it is that the reader laughs. When you try to be intentionally funny it could backfire. If people don’t laugh, then it makes the text a different thing entirely. It drains the flavor out of the text. You won’t be able to taste it as it’s meant to be tasted.

And this is why it’s difficult, because you can’t always transfer things from the original language to the translation. So you have to work your way around it. Sometimes, you have to compromise just to transfer the meaning, and you’ll give up the humor. Sometimes, you have to find your way around it, searching for another point to reveal the humor. I hope that people will find it as funny in English as they have found it in the original. This is one of the most things that makes me nervous about this novel.

For instance, a funny moment where I try to use alliteration in English to replace some of the bounce of the Arabic, and part of which is funny in either language, because the character is ridiculous:

After the last sip of his second cup of tea, Mimi headed to the bathroom to practice his favourite hobby, singing, while he shat and showered, in no particular order. He would usually cut his shower short because of the miserable condition of the bathroom plumbing. Mimi would come out wearing an undershirt, boxers, and wool socks. This was his formal off-day outfit, even in the middle of winter. He had a wise explanation for why he wasn’t afraid to wear such light clothes in the freezing cold: “Cold only gets into your body through the soles of your feet. Keep them warm, and you shouldn’t worry. As for the rest of your body, especially your balls, soup and alcohol will warm them right up.”

As you can see, the language in Um Mimi isn’t just about profanity; it’s smooth, witty, provocative and in places it can also tug at the reader’s emotions. It was hard because the two things to translate that make me nervous, actually, are humor and poetry, because they have to be treated in a special way.

This novel depicts the lives of Cairo’s just-hanging-on-class in the 1990s. How does this novel weave between a comic and realistic depiction of the times? How do these two aspects (comic and realistic) affect one another?

OH: Belal might agree or disagree with this, but I think of this as a sort of fictional autobiography; it has elements of his life, and the fictional characters and fictional events are believable in such a way that you can’t distinguish the ridiculous from what is true. Part of the comedy comes from the true nature of the events, how they are absurd and bleak, so that you have to laugh at them to make them digestible. What Belal did in this novel is what friends who went through dark times do when they get together after a while. They laugh at their misery; they make jokes about it.

Another part is the dynamic between the characters, especially Um Mimi and her son. The way in which the protagonist is trying to fit in with a family that lives entirely differently from him, and who have different interests, generates many funny incidents.

As you read, you can believe that these stories are real, or at least have some element of reality, and you can’t entirely distinguish what is fiction from what is fact.

Are there other books set in Cairo that you particularly enjoy? Any that you’d recommend for translation?

OH:  There are a number of recent novels that give insight into Cairo, for example, السنجة  Elsenga, by Ahmed Khaled Towfiq, which in part takes place in a similar setting. There is also سنوات الجري في المكان, by Nora Nagy. It’s stylistically and linguistically different from Um Mimi, but it also shows aspects of Cairo leading up to the 2011 revolution. The last one is لونجا, written by Mariam Abdel-Aziz. It shows lesser-known parts of Cairo while also solving a murder.

Do you have advice for other translators who want to jump in and translate their first book-length work?

OH: I think play the long game. Be patient and don’t give up easily. It’s always hard, but your second attempt won’t be as difficult as your first.