“Sometimes, even the translator would say, ‘Hanan, they wouldn’t know.’ And I say, ‘Well, let them search.’ I wouldn’t bend only for the sake of the reader.” I actually found an interview where she was asked about translating her work and she said, That may be part of what is challenging me.Įven when it comes to the first problem of being translated from another language, Hanan al-Shaykh seems to like to make things difficult for her readers. I read a useful comment this week in the blog Arabic Literature (In English) that Arabic books aren’t just being translated from another language, but also from another literary tradition. (I’m including The Women of Algiers in their Apartment in that group, even though it was originally written in French.) I don’t know to what degree I’ve happened to choose difficult books or if there really is something particularly challenging about Arabic literature in translation. In my reading for my book-from-every-country project so far I feel like I’ve had a hard time with most of the Arabic literature that I have tried.
Actually Woman at Point Zero was the more uplifting of the two, which is remarkable since its premise is that it is the story of a prostitute who is about to be executed for murder. In both, the heroine just keeps on being mistreated by one person after another- their parents, their relatives, their lovers. The first half of The Story of Zahra by Hanan al-Shaykh reminded me a lot of the first half of Woman at Point Zero. In the end though, I think I’ve gotten something important from reading it. Wow, this was a difficult book to read! One of those books that can make you feel depressed even when your own life is full of ducklings and ice cream cones. Translated from the Arabic by Peter Ford.
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