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Translating Solidarity An Interview with Nehad Salem Introduced and IntervIewed by Hala HalIm abstract This in ter view with vet eran Egyp tian trans la tor and inter preter Nehad Salem is preceded by an in tro duc tion that sit u ates her bi og ra phy and for ma tion in re la tion to the key, interconnected inter­ na tion al/in ter na tion al ist fo rums in which her ca reer un fold ed. A ded i cated Third Worldist, Salem par­ tic i pated in cru cial events of the liber a tion pe ri od, in clud ing the resis tance in Port Said during the Suez War, and taught in Algeria in the wake of decol o ni za tion. Spotlighting her work in insti tu tions such as the Af ro­Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organization, the Af ro­Asian Writers’ Association, and UNESCO, the in ter view ad dresses is sues of gen der and agency in re la tion to the trans la tor/in ter pret er, and the po et ics and pol i tics of lit er ary trans la tion. The in ter view traces de tails about the lit er ary his tory of the lib er a tion pe riod through Salem’s work in the journal Lotus: Af ro-Asian Writ ings, edited by, among others, the Egyp­ tian writer Edwar al­Kharrat, and her transla tions of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and the Egyp tian poet Salah Jahin. keywords trans la tion, Af ro­Asian move ment, Lotus jour nal, in ter na tion al ism, Third Worldism Introduction “The Spirit of Bandung”—a motto that en cap su lates the vig or ously mo bi liz ing pro­ ject of the mo ment of lib er a tion.1 If the 1955 Asian­Af ri can Conference, or Band­ ung, of­fcially launched the “Third World as an idea,” that idea had a pre his to ry, for in stance in the first con fer ence of the League against Imperialism in Brussels, held in 1927, and the 1949 Conference of the Women of Asia in Beijing.2 Against the back drop of the Cold War and de spite its in ev i ta ble im pinge ments, the Band­ ung con fer ence staged an en coun ter, in the Third World itself, among rep re sen ta­ tives of twen ty­nine newly decolonized Asian and Af ri can states, with In dian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyp tian pres i dent Gamal Abdel­Nasser, and In do ne­ sian pres i dent Sukarno playing lead ing roles. The con fer ence up held the ide als of an ti­im pe ri al ism, self­de ter mi na tion, re sis tance to rac ism, co op er a tion among par tici pat ing countries, dis ar ma ment, and world peace. The ten­point “Declaration CRITICAL TIMES | 3:1 | APRIL 2020 DOI 10.1215/26410478-8189881 | © HALA HALIM This is an open ac cess ar ti cle dis trib uted un der the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 131 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/1/131/806452/131halim.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 on the Promotion of World Peace,” with which the con fer ence’s Final Communiqué closes, was “in con for CRITICAL TIMES 3:1 | APRIL 2020 | 132 of ac tors” in or der to re cap ture “some thing of the quo tid ian agen cy” of the Af ro­ Asian as well as of other in ter na tion al isms of the peri od.7 The crit i cally un re­ marked mem oirs, and mem o ries, of less vis HALIM | TRANSLATING SOLIDARITY | 133 founded the film pro duc tion com pany Studio Misr at the be hest of the na tion al­ ist econ o mist Tal‘at Harb. Her for ma tion—the solid ground ing in Eu ro pean lan­ guages/lit er a tures grad u ally followed by in creas ing com pe tence in lit er ary Ar a bic, partly ac quired in the Af ro­Asian con text—is vir tu ally iden ti cal to that of sev eral trans la tor­in ter preter col leagues of hers I interviewed. In this sense, among oth­ ers, the Af ro­Asian move ment of ered its ac tors some thing of a Bildung. Salem con joins her trans la tional prac tice with a po lit i cized praxis span ning a broad spec trum of Third Worldist sol i dar ity be yond her in volve ment in the Af ro­ Asian move ment. In the in tro duc tion to her highly ac com plished En glish trans la tion of the Egyp tian poet Salah Jahin’s Ruba‘iyyat (qua trains) writ ten in Egyptian col lo­ quial Arabic, she de scribes the 1950s and 1960s in Egypt as “a time of mir a cles and a time for mir a cles,” a time when ed u ca tion be came avail­­able to all , when the coun try supported “many a new in de pen dent Af ri can state” and worked to se cure Ar ab uni­ ty.13 Together with her sec ond hus band, ‘Ali al­Shalaqani, a law yer and “very de voted militant,” in her words, Salem joined the pop u lar re sis tance dur ing the Suez War. A re sponse to President Nasser’s na tion al i za tion of the Suez Canal, the war waged by England, France, and Is rael against Egypt in 1956 ini tially resulted in an Egyp­ tian mil i tary defeat, the bombardment of the canal zone, and landing of French and British troops. This was followed by a force ful re sis tance and a dip lo matic vic to ry. While many wom en, as well as sev eral dif er ent groups in Egypt, joined the re sis­ tance, aided by the Egyp tian mil i tary, along side the peo ple of Port Said, Salem and her hus band par tic i pated un der the ban ner of the com mu nist party they belonged to, HADETU (the Ar a bic ac ro nym for the Democratic Movement for National Lib­ eration).14 This was also a period of strong Egyp tian sol i dar i ty, at the gov ern ment level as well as on the left, with the Algerian strug­g le for in de pen dence. Several Cairo­based rep re sen ta tives of the Algerian rev o lu tion re ceived sup port from the militant Lotfallah Soliman, whose book shop and pub lish ing house, Dar al­Nadim, were among the hubs for their cause; in deed, al­Shalaqani would is sue his book Thawrat al-Jaza’ir (The Algerian Revolution) un der the Dar al­Nadim im print.15 After work ing at AAPSO and AAWA for a spell, Salem would in ter pret at a va ri ety of no ta ble fo rums, in clud ing the (then) Organization of Af ri can Unity and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Both of the Af ro­Asian in sti tu­ tions un flag­g ingly championed the Palestinian cause; among AAWA’s Lotus Prize win ners were Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani, and Lotus prom i nently and reg u larly fea tured Palestinian texts. It is no won der that Salem re ceived full sup port from both AAPSO and AAWA when CRITICAL TIMES 3:1 | APRIL 2020 | 134 French René Maheu (1962–74) and the Senegalese Amadou­Mahtar M’Bow (1974– 87)—were known for their sup port of the Third World. In per son, Salem (known as “Nana” to fam ily and friends) has a com mand ing pres ence and impeccable, rather em phatic el o cu tion in Ar a bic (in ter spersed with quaint lo cu tions, such as the ti tle Bey), French, and (Ox bridge­tinged) En glish. The text be low, rad i cally abridged and redacted for rea sons of space, draws on three face­to­face in ter views in Egypt and some tele phone calls—conducted largely in Egyp tian col lo quial Ar a bic and some En glish, punc tu ated with mo ments of code­ switching—be tween 2017 and 2019. Hala Halim: On the phone, you men tioned that you never com piled a CV. Would you pro vide a biographical note on your self? Nehad Salem: It used to be the case in Egypt that trans la tion was taught only at al­Alsun [school of trans la tors, later in cluded as a fac ulty in Ain Shams University]; in the past, univer si ties took no in ter est in teach ing trans la tion. Later al­Alsun also of ered train ing in interpreting. I’m one of those peo ple who re ceived their train­ ing in trans la tion on the job. I was for tu nate thanks to my par ents. My mother was very keen that I should re ceive a French ed u ca tion, whereas my fa ther wanted me to re ceive an En glish ed u ca tion. When they sep a rat ed, I played a game of ten nis be tween French and En HALIM | TRANSLATING SOLIDARITY | 135 rest in peace, who su per vised the sec re tar i at.

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