Reading Iraqi Women Writers' Arabic Novels in English Translation Using
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Iraqi women’s stories: reading Iraqi women writers’ Arabic novels in English translation using analytical perspectives of feminist translation A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES 2018 Ruth Abou Rached SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Table of Contents Abstract…..……................................................................................................................................ 4 Declaration………..….….................................................................................................................. 5 Copyright Statements......................................................................................................................... 6 Note on transliteration........................................................................................................................ 7 Acknowledgements……………........................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 1: Introduction……..…..………........................................................................................... 10 1.1: Overview……....................................................................................................................... 10 1.2: Contexts of inquiry: Iraqi and Arab women’s literature, and feminist translation................. 13 1.3: Critical contexts of Iraqi women writers’ story-writing.………........................................... 15 1.4: Key motifs of Iraqi women writers’ story-writing in Arabic publication............................. 28 1.5: The politics of Iraqi literary publication: negotiating alterity and integrity…….................. 35 1.6: Critical intersections: Arab women’s literature in English translation….….…….….…….. 40 1.7: Critical contexts of methodological framework: feminist translation approaches…..…..… 44 1.8: Thesis structure: research questions, critical approaches and chapter themes…..….….….. 54 Chapter 2: Translating ‘the Uncanny’- Samira Al-Mana and Daizy Al-Amir…..…..……………… 61 2.1: Overview.............................................................................................................................. 61 al-ightirāb] in Iraqi literature.................................. 62] اﻻغتراب The Uncanny’ as Home and‘ :2.2 2.3: Feminist translation approaches and ‘overt’ translator activist agency............................... 68 The Umbilical Cord]) and Samira Al-Mana: critical themes…………………. 72] حبل السرة :2.4 The Umbilical Cord] (1990) in 2005 translation: recovering lost stories………. 76] حبل السرة :2.5 On The Waiting List] and Daizy Al-Amir: critical themes………….…... 91] على ﻻئحة اﻹنتظار :2.6 On The Waiting List] (1988) in 1994 translation: an uncanny staging.…. 94] على ﻻئحة اﻹنتظار :2.7 2.8: Conclusion: new paradigms of c/overt translator agency…....……...……….…………… 108 Chapter 3: Translating the politics of dislocation in post-2003 Iraq - Inaam Kachachi…….……… 111 3.1: Overview.............................................................................................................................. 111 The American Granddaughter] (2009): critical themes……..…................ 113] الحفيدة اﻷميركية :3.2 3.3: Locating the politics of Iraqi women’s story-writing in English translation...................... 117 2 The American Granddaughter] ‘doubled’ in English translation.…..…….. 124] الحفيدة اﻻميركية :3.4 3.5: A comparative reading: the politics of gendered (dis/re) location in re/translation............. 131 3.6: The politics of c/overt (re)location of different women’s voices…..……..……………… 142 3.7: Conclusion: a paradigm of aural feminist translation………..…………...……………… 159 Chapter 4: Translating solidarity among the subaltern - Betool Khedairi…..................................... 163 4.1: Overview……...................................................................................................................... 163 A Sky So Close] (1999): critical themes….……..……….….................. 166] كم بدت السماء قريبة! :4.2 4.3: Iraqi women writers’gendered subalternity as ‘conscious alterity’….........……………… 170 4.4: Interactions and reflections: rural identity in Arabic-English para/translation…................. 177 4.5: Traces and echoes: black Iraqi identity in Arabic-English para/translation.......………….. 193 4.6: Conclusion: new conversations for polyphonic feminist translation approaches...………. 208 Chapter 5: Re-writing gendered confrontations - Alia Mamdouh and Hadiya Hussein.…............... 212 5.1: Overview……....................................................................................................................... 212 5.2: Beyond binaries: Iraqi women writers re/writing gendered geopolitical difference……... 214 5.3: Metramorphic feminist translation approaches: beyond language binaries…...……….…. 218 Mothballs] and Alia Mamdouh: critical themes……………………..……... 222] حبات النفتالين :5.4 5.5: Mothballs (1995) and Naphtalene (2005): confronting gendered un/translatability……… 226 Beyond Love] and Hadiya Hussein: critical contexts.……….….……………. 241] ما بعد الحب :5.6 5.7: Beyond Love (2004/2012): cross-constituency solidarity in times of conflict………….… 242 5.8: Conclusion: re-scripting metramorphic feminist translations approaches……….……..… 259 Chapter 6: Conclusion….……………………………………………...……………………………. 262 6.1: Overview: research aims and project outcomes.……….……...…………………...……… 262 6.2: Critical insights: Iraqi women’s novels alongside frames of feminist translation……..… 265 6.3: Reflections and projections: scoping future research directions……....……………...…… 274 Bibliography…………........................................................................................................................ 278 Appendix: Reference List of Iraqi women writers’ stories in Arabic and English translation.….... 299 Word count: 87, 875 3 Abstract This study offers a critical exploration of Iraqi women writers’ novels in Arabic-English translation as a body of work which reflects in many ways the impact of seismic political changes on the peoples of Iraq at different times and places. Iraqi women writers’ novels have been acclaimed for privileging localised gendered perspectives of everyday life over discourses of hegemonic politics in Iraq while negotiating the shifting effects of state censorship, violence, war and dislocation on Iraqi literary output, inside and outside of Iraq. With Iraq’s modern history of war, conflict and fluctuating political contexts, the strategies used to mediate Iraqi women writer’s novels in Arabic in English translation have been varied. In view of many Iraqi writers having to publish their novels outside of Iraq, the politics of Iraqi writers’ location – and that or their literary works - have emerged as potentially charged and fruitful points of debate in contemporary Iraqi activist scholarship. The strategies of translation used to mediate Iraqi women writers’ novels at different junctures thus raise interesting questions on how Iraqi women’s stories told from localised, gendered and distinctly Iraqi perspectives were translated into English, a language associated with and at times intertwining Iraq’s recent history of war, occupation and political instability. The aim of this study is to raise appreciation of Iraqi women writers’ novels as an important part of contemporary Iraqi and Arab literature by putting forward a new approach of reading how Iraqi women writers’ novels move across languages in shifting, charged frames of gendered geopolitical contexts. In this study, then I analyse the different strategies used to mediate six Iraqi women writers’ novels and story-making in English translation. To do so, I use and interrogate analytical frameworks of feminist translation which are underpinned by the theoretical premises that all writing, including translation are (gendered) re-writings of socio-linguistic, gendered and intersectional dynamics of power. While these premises configure borders between (gendered) writing and translation as fluid, ambiguous and transformative in ways potentially salient to Iraqi women writers’ novels, paradigms of feminist translation are yet to be explored in depth alongside Iraqi and Arab women’s literature in English translation. The outcome of my study is two-fold: one, to draw critical attention to the innovative gendered writing strategies used in this tradition of Iraqi and Arab women’s literature in Arabic and English translation and two, to offer potentially new theoretical horizons for feminist translation studies and other academic fields critically engaging with Iraqi and Arab women’s literatures in translation. 4 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Some of the materials in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 have been drawn from two articles which have appeared in recently published collections (Abou Rached 2017 and Abou Rached 2018). This material cited in section 1.8 of Chapter 1 (Abou Rached 2017; Abou Rached 2018), section 2.3 and section 2.5 in Chapter 2 (Abou Rached 2017). I also make a brief reference to the both of these articles in the Conclusion chapter (Abou Rached 2017 and Abou Rached 2018). Both articles are listed as part of the Bibliography of this thesis. 5 Copyright Statements i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright