An Example of Self-translation: The Case of Lina: A Portrait of a Damascene Girl

Abstract

In this paper we would like to introduce the special case of the Syrian female author Samar Attar, who started writing her novels in Arabic and later in English, as an apparent case of self-translation. However, I would like to highlight the case of this author as a special one, since she does not translate her poems and books but she does a re-writing of her works, carrying out a cultural adapting task from the original Arabic into English. This task involves several areas, namely, the linguistic, the religious, the social and even the political and the ideological. The aim of this paper is then to analyse, from a translational point of view, some fragments of the English novel, accounting for the Arabic cultural roots, where we can appreciate specific critical issues. For this purpose, we will focus mostly on the novel Lina: A Portrait of a Damascene Girl, the second book of a trilogy, the third part of which has not been published yet. The novel describes the growing up of a young girl in Damascus, Syria, in the shade of military governments, during the 50s and 60s, to the extent that she is determined to leave Syria. Throughout theanalysis of this novel, which is also autobiographical, we will discuss how the three different strata of the Arabic novel (the familiar, the social and the political environments), have been dealt with in the English version.

 

Keywords: Self-translation, Arabic, English, Literature, Female author, Novel.