I have never found translations of Yusuf Idris completely satisfying (because I fear the translator, perhaps?). I think this is something that has hindered world appreciation of Idris, who—whatever his mental-health and jealousy issues might have been—is a tremendous short-story writer.
I often—perhaps too often—think about translation. Lately, I’ve been mulling the penchant of book reviewers to sigh about any text not originally in English (that they didn’t entirely love): Well, who knows, this was probably the fault of that translator. (The translator is invisible, the reviewer doesn’t know much about him/her, but—anyway—it was probably that person’s fault.)
Marie Dhumières had a piece last month in the Guardian—which I just caught making the rounds on Facebook—in which she complains of the literal translation of insha’allah and other religious […]
The panel “Translating ‘Controversial’ Arabic Literature” at the International Federation of Translators XIX World Congress in San Francisco (August 2011: Bridging Word Cultures) is looking for papers. Following EURAMAL’s (the […]
I just noticed, courtesy of Susannah Tarbush, Fadia Faqir‘s recent post on how Arab and Arabic literature gets “lost in translation.” Faqir discusses the difficulty of being a writer or […]
The international women’s publication Belletrista is, this issue, running two features up about Arab writers. One is: “Who Has the Power? Reading Arab Women in English,” which explores the shifting […]
In a short essay for the blog Three Percent, translator Chip Rosetti explores an issue that had surely been bothering me subconsciously: Translating an Arabic literary text set in the English-speaking world.
I recently finished reading Elias Khoury’s Little Mountain (1977), as translated by the able and lovely Maia Tabet.* The translation, published in 1989, is full of footnotes. (It wasn’t until […]
According to the Oman Observer, the two-day symposium—“Translating Omani Literature”—promises to tackle issues related to bringing Omani lit to Arabic and non-Arabic audiences. This was news to me, as I […]
