This expression posed a number of problems. The first and foremost was the rhyme. How can you capture an Arabic rhyme with an equivalent English expression? Then, it inverts another, similar rhyming expression which compares a man’s body to a lion, complimenting his masculinity, “shu hal-jasad ya-asad?” But in the expression we were working with, a term had to be found that makes fun of a man, invoking gendered language that implies that he is like a woman, but gently and in a joking spirit. After much debate I decided that “bitch” was the right word and spent months trying to rhyme it with an appropriate expression that would compliment his legs. After a period during which I changed my mind and had all but settled on the contemporary slang “‘ho” instead of “bitch” (for 2a7beh) because of its greater rhyming possibilities, my students provided me with a wealth of choices from which I finally settled on “Legs so long and lanky, whoa that bitch is skanky.”
One final difficult issue, amongst many more that I will not detail here, is: How can you capture a dialogue in English that is completely written in Modern Standard Arabic but that is meant to represent people speaking English? The characters in the novel are all meant to be speaking English most of the time. Because Yana is Romanian and Abeer and Yasmine are Lebanese and they study at an English-medium university, English is their common language. In fact, Yana’s mispronunciation of Arabic is also referred to frequently in the text and is the source of many jokes. These moments are difficult to convey because they are not very funny in English—her mispronunciations are not immediately apparent and have to be explained, losing some of the comic effect. My solution to this is to sometimes embed descriptions in English in the translation that explain some of these contexts. I have tried to keep these to a minimum because my overall translation strategy is to leave the original text to speak for itself through my interpretation as much as possible.
As a translator, of course, invoking my conversations with the author gives my own work a certain authority. But implying that I have Alexandra Chreiteh’s “stamp of approval” on the finished version does not put an end to the questions that we both have about the translation. Indeed we still do not necessarily agree on every translation choice that I have made. In the final version, I was particularly concerned with preserving elements of strangeness and difference in the text; this is rooted in my concern with how texts often lose their specificity and character in the move from Arabic to English, particularly in our contemporary English-language political and cultural climate of the beginning of the twenty-first century. This often trumped Chreiteh’s authorial desire to make the text as accessible as possible to an English-reading audience. Originally, she wanted the text to read as fluently as possible and I was strongly committed to preserving an “Arabic accent” in a text moving from Arabic to English, from a Lebanese literary context to an English-language one. I was concerned with the importance of the power dynamics when Arabic texts move into English, leave their “local” setting and enter a “global” one. Because of the Arabic text’s play with language, humor, and irony, I was particularly worried about losing this and creating a homogenized text that would be appealing but lose its edge. The result is a compromise, but one which I largely controlled. I thus take responsibility for where this translation may be difficult or less readable, while gratefully acknowledging Alexandra for pushing me to think differently and to create a text that we both can live with; hopefully, it is better because of our collaboration.
Translator’s Acknowledgments
For her generosity of spirit, cynical outlook, and wicked sense of humor, I would like sincerely to thank Alexandra Chreiteh. I want to acknowledge Michel Moushabeck and the people at Interlink Books who make it possible to work in creative and collaborative ways on translation, not always common in today’s marketplace. Special thanks are owed to the painstaking and conscientious work of Hilary Plum. Once again, Elise Salem facilitated my path to translating a novel from Lebanon, merci kteer. A grateful acknowledgement to colleagues and friends who helped me with specific words and passages—Malek Abisaab, Khalid Medani, and Laila Parsons. Thanks also to Rachel Galanter and Amanda Hartman who read it in English (on vacation) and thought with me about words and phrases. I would also like to thank enthusiastically the students in my translation seminar at McGill University, fall 2010, who pushed my thinking on the politics, theory, and practice of Arabic–English translation; they helped me to solve some of its trickiest problems: Hussam Ahmad, Jay Alexander, Chloe O’Connor, Jennifer Dunn, Katy Kelamkarian, Gayatri Kumar, Rachel Naparstek, Elizabeth Snyder, Julia Wilk. The biggest thanks go to Dima Ayoub, who worked as more than just a research assistant on this project. She discussed the entire translation with me more than once and helped in obsessing about many of the issues, problems, passages, as well as specific word choices and overall framework. It is her translation too. A very large debt is also owed to the women whose work allowed me to finish the translation: Alison Slattery, Marie Lippeveld, and Mama Rachel Zellars. As always, my parents deserve bigger thanks than I can give in print for their ongoing practical and emotional support. Yasmine Nachabe was also a crucial support and interlocutor in Beirut during the final stages of finishing this translation, thanks to her and the other Taans.
This translation speaks to generations of girls and young women; working on it transported me to my own university days, some of them spent in Beirut. In this spirit it is dedicated to the women I spent those years with, most importantly to my sister, Amanda.
Always Coca-Cola Page 10
