{"id":12244,"date":"2014-08-24T01:40:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T05:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=12244"},"modified":"2014-08-24T01:40:16","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T05:40:16","slug":"translation-and-expectation-which-for-bread-alone-are-you-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/translation-and-expectation-which-for-bread-alone-are-you-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Translation and Expectation: Which \u2018For Bread Alone\u2019 Are You\u00a0Reading?"},"content":{"rendered":"

via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English)<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

BY\u00a0MLYNXQUALEY<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0on<\/em>\u00a00<\/a>\u00a0)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Yesterday, ArabLit posted about\u00a0a\u00a0new Mohamed Choukri International Award<\/a>\u00a0while making only slight mention of the circumstances under which Choukri\u2019s internationally acclaimed\u00a0<\/em>al-Khubz al-Hafi\u00a0was translated into English. Indeed, calling it a translation is perhaps inaccurate:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"khubz\"<\/a>Addressing this issue\u00a0is\u00a0Nirvana Tanoukhi\u2019s \u201cRewriting Political Commitment for an International Canon: Paul Bowles\u2019s\u00a0For Bread Alone<\/em>\u00a0as Translation of Mohamed Choukri\u2019s\u00a0Al-Khubz Al-Hafi<\/em><\/a>\u201d (2003).<\/p>\n

Any translation will\u00a0differ from its original, absolutely. And any translator and author may well differ in how they read the book and how they understand what makes a (good) literary work. But the Choukri-Bowles collaboration is an extreme case for several reasons. First, Bowles didn\u2019t read classical Arabic (fos7a) at all, and had only a limited knowledge of Moroccan colloquial Arabic (darija). The translation thus took place verbally, by way of Spanish, some French, and a bit\u00a0of darija.<\/p>\n

But this is perhaps not the central issue. The central issue, as\u00a0Tanoukhi posits it, is that Bowles\u2019s translation rewrites \u2014 or attempts to rewrite \u2014 Choukri\u2019s original as a \u201cthird world\u201d text (oral, pre-literate, pre-nationalist, apolitical) for inclusion into a Western-centered world literature canon.<\/p>\n

Bowles \u2014 perhaps like other writers gathered in Tangier in the early 1970s \u2014 saw illiteracy and \u201cprimitivism\u201d as a privileged state. Although Tanoukhi notes that Bowles\u2019s interest in oral culture has been praised as an attempt to decenter the Western canon, she paints it as more akin to an interest in the\u00a0\u201cnoble savage.\u201d Bowles\u2019s focus\u00a0on the \u201cpreliterate imagination\u201d was central. Indeed, all the other\u00a0Moroccan writers who Bowles \u201ctranslated\u201d \u2014 all except Choukri \u2014 were illiterate storytellers. Bowles also envisioned Choukri as somehow more-or-less illiterate, since he hadn\u2019t learned to read and write as a child, but as an adult.<\/p>\n

Tanoukhi writes: \u201cBowles\u2019s collaboration with Moroccan storytellers has been seen by his admirers to exemplify an equal partnership by which a sympathetic interlocutor gives voice to an illiterate native.\u201d We won\u2019t go into the fraught territory of \u201cgiving voice<\/a>,\u201d but you can well imagine that these writers already had their own voices, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

Five years after\u00a0For Bread Alone<\/em>\u2018s English-language publication, Tanoukhi writes, Bowles wrote about\u00a0the tension behind their collaboration. Why tension?\u00a0Tanoukhi writes that:<\/p>\n

\u2026a careful examination of the Bowles translation,\u00a0For Bread Alone<\/em>\u00a0(1973), and the Arabic text,\u00a0Al-Khubz Al-Hafi<\/em>\u00a0(1982), shows that there are significant differences between the two versions that recur in recognizable patterns and point to diverging horizons of expectations.<\/p>\n

In the end, Tanoukhi argues, the two works were no longer sisters, but perhaps cousins separated at birth and raised on separate continents. Cousins who might not much like each other if they met at a party.<\/p>\n

Bowles wrote, five years after the publication of\u00a0For Bread Alone<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Had I known how difficult it would be to make English translations of Mohamed Choukri\u2019s texts I doubt that I should have undertaken the work [. . .]. When we were translating his autobiographyFor Bread Alone<\/em>, he sat beside me, in order to see that I was making a word-for-word translation of his text. If he noticed an extra comma he demanded an explanation. I was driven to reiterating: but English is not Arabic!<\/p>\n

It sounds fair enough. English isn\u2019t Arabic, and comma patterns vary. But Tanoukhi suggests not an overprotective author and reasonable translator, but instead\u00a0that, \u201cAfter having had the freedom to \u2018translate, edit, and to cut\u2019 other storytellers\u2019 material, Bowles was impatient with Choukri\u2019s desire to control the textual integrity of the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is all relatively well-known. But it\u2019s the details that are not just eye-opening, but open a lens through which to\u00a0look at other translations. Tanoukhi writes that one text addresses a \u201cpolitically committed social realist paradigm\u201d (the Arabic) while the\u00a0other was \u201cunconcerned with politics\u201d (the English).<\/p>\n

Whole passages are missing, Tanoukhi\u00a0writes. For instance: \u201cThey spent many days without food. They did not want to beg their neighbors for food. So they built a door on the inside of their house from rocks and clay, locking themselves in until they died.\u201d* \u00a0This passage, which\u00a0establishes a causal, political link between hunger and later actions, is erased.<\/p>\n

Also, sexuality is positioned very differently in the two texts. When Mohamed\u2019s aunt demands an explanation of why he had sex with a boy, in English, his response is, \u201cI don\u2019t understand myself.\u201d In the Arabic: \u201cIn Tetuan, the thighs of prostitutes were available to me in the Saniya Bordello. But here, who can I desire? Am I supposed to desire your thighs? Monique\u2019s thighs are her husband\u2019s. Yours are your own husband\u2019s. And what about me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Another pair of passages on sexuality:<\/p>\n

From the Arabic: \u201cI felt his teeth on me. What if he bites it? To speed my ejaculation, I imagined raping Asiya in Tetuan.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Bowles\u2019s English: \u201cThe idea cooled my enthusiasm. To bring it back, I began to imagine that I was deflowering Asiya in Tetuan\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, in the Arabic, after the above encounter: \u201cI was overcome by the desire to cry. What do I do with this old man who just sucked me?\u201d<\/p>\n

And the English: \u201cAre all the\u00a0maricones<\/em>\u00a0as nice as he was?\u201d<\/p>\n

In one version, as Tanoukhi writes, economic need pushes Mohamed toward illicit\u00a0sex \u2014 with a young boy and an older man. In the other, it\u2019s the confused search for erotic pleasure.<\/p>\n

Economic need is erased elsewhere as well. The explanation for why Mohamed wasn\u2019t brought to school as a young boy in the Arabic: \u201cIt\u2019s just that we\u2019re too poor, and learning costs a lot [in Tetuan].\u201d And in the English: \u201cI don\u2019t know. But he didn\u2019t ever take me to any school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Arabic was published nearly a decade after the English, and while Choukri said he made only minor edits, it\u2019s possible some of them are found here. In any case, the differences between these two versions are extreme, and most contemporary translators wouldn\u2019t go quite so far in re-crafting a\u00a0book. But pointing toward a different horizon of expecations is important, as even much smaller changes in tone and wording can have a broad effect.<\/p>\n

Also, if the issues with Choukri\u2019s estate are now cleared up, it\u2019s time for a new translation.<\/p>\n

*All re-translations by Tanoukhi.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English): BY\u00a0MLYNXQUALEY\u00a0on\u00a0AUGUST 24, 2014 \u2022\u00a0(\u00a00\u00a0) Yesterday, ArabLit posted about\u00a0a\u00a0new Mohamed Choukri International Award\u00a0while making only slight mention of the circumstances under which Choukri\u2019s internationally acclaimed\u00a0al-Khubz al-Hafi\u00a0was translated...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,103],"tags":[1569,914],"class_list":["post-12244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arab-culture","category-arabic","category-translation","tag-mohamed-choukri","tag-paul-bowles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12245,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244\/revisions\/12245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}