Publications

Publication details [#53905]

Mourad, Hafida. 2020. Resistance, activism and marronage in Paul Bowles’s translations of the oral stories of Tangier. In Gould, Rebecca and Kayvan Tahmasebian, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism (Routledge Handbooks in Translation and Interpreting Studies). London: Routledge.
Publication type
Chapter in book
Publication language
English
Person as a subject

Abstract

This chapter situates the translations of the American novelist, music composer and translator Bowles (1910–1999) within the framework of translation as activism in the light of Tymoczko’s definition of translation as both a form of resistance and engagement. It is revealed that the translator’s agency embodied in his choices and strategies, mainly his selective approach to Moroccan culture in his representation of the culture as well as in his selection of the oral stories of Tangier. The author discusses how Bowles’s translations of the oral stories of Tangier communicate the translator’s resistance to mainstream representations of culture and literature. In addition, the chapter discusses how these translations constitute a main tool used by the translator to communicate his dissatisfaction with the standards of modern life during a critical time in the history of both source and target cultures. Concurrently, they enhance alternative modes of existence outside the post-war US celebrated in the oral stories that Bowles encouraged and translated.
Source : Based on publisher information