BY MOHAMMED SYLLA

Writing against the prevailing trend is, of course, a great challenge. “Damn the Novel: When a Privileged Genre Prevails Over All Forms of Creative Writing,” a provocative book by Sudanese-born author Amr Muneer Dahab published in 2018 by AuthorHouse in Indiana, United States, is the embodiment of that challenge. While the book served as the author’s introduction to readers in the English-speaking world, it must be noted that Dahab, a prolific author who has so far penned 44 books, excels in a wide range of genres that includes literary criticism, social studies, topics with psychological and humanitarian dimensions, artistic criticism, and others.

But “Damn the Novel” was not only Dahab’s introduction to readers in the English-speaking world; it was also the introduction of the writer himself to the world of translation between the English and Arabic languages.

In this exclusive interview with The African, Dahab walks us through the challenging process of translating his works from one language to another.

The African: How did you get involved in translation?

Amr Muneer Dahab: The independent beginning of my involvement in translating my works was from English to Arabic and not the other way around as it might be expected; that was with my book “Deep” which came out about three years ago. The experience seemed a little strange to me at the time, as I felt I was in front of the work of another writer and not translating a work of my own.

Besides, it felt like the original English text was written primarily for English readers, so any attempt at a “semi-literal” translation of the text would be futile. I then assumed the position of a professional translator who translates the work of another author writing in a different language. I must, therefore, immerse myself in the spirit of the text and then translate it as I understood it while preserving as much of the literal/direct translation as possible.

This is what I believe deeply about the translation process: the translator should not deviate from the text under the pretext of transferring to the reader the spirit of the translated language, except when the direct—or “semi-literal”—translation is not possible due to the nature of some expressions, such as aphorisms related to a specific environment or expressions that involve playing with words.

But whoever reads your book “Deep” cannot imagine that translating it could involve special challenges, considering that the translator is the author himself and the book’s subject is wisdom and self-development, or, to be precise, “wisdom literature and self-enlightenment” as it is written in the subtitle of the book.

This is a valid observation. It is indeed what I imagined myself, as I stated earlier. But it is clear that every work that undergoes a translation process, regardless of the two languages ​​being translated from and translated to, entails special challenges. Arguably, the style of the writer and the way he presents his ideas determine the level of the challenge more than the subject of the translated work itself.

In your answer to my first question, you referred to your “independent beginnings” in translation. Does this mean that you practiced translation in collaboration with others before that?

Yes, indeed; and in fact, this was my introduction to working independently on translating two of my later works from English to Arabic and vice versa. It started with reviewing/auditing the translation of my friend “Youssef Elharrak,” the professional translator of my book “Damn the Novel” six years ago. We eventually completed the work in what “Youssef Elharrak” considered “collaborative translation.” In fact, I was only reviewing Youssef’s translation and making the necessary adjustments to reflect my opinions as precisely as possible.

Has this collaborative translation been repeated in another experience?

Yes, it was repeated with “Youssef Elharrak” again in translating my poetry collection “Stubborn in Love.” It was quite challenging because classical Arabic lyric poetry is essentially based on linguistic expression styles, wordplay, and other verbal rhetorical enhancements, in addition to the poetry music that is essentially linked to the original text in Arabic. “Youssef Elharrak” did a wonderful job, as usual. My intervention in checking, reviewing, and redrafting was greater this time because of the nature of poetic work in the Arabic language, as I mentioned.

Are there any upcoming projects to translate other works of yours?

I plan to ​​translate all my works in Arabic into English, but it is a huge project. It’s a great onus that consumes a lot of time and effort at the expense of writing new works. It is true that modern electronic applications have greatly facilitated the translation process. But the challenge of translation insofar as it is the direct (not necessarily literal) transfer of the work under translation without losing the substance or spirit of the original text is still present.

To read more about the author, go on the website of The African, www.myafricanmagazine.com, and search Dahab.