ARABIC LITERATURE INTO ENGLISH The (Im)possibility of Understanding

Since the events of 11 September 2001, there has been greater interest in translating Arabic literature into English in order to enhance understanding of the Arab-Muslim world. However, much focus has been placed on writers whose works substantiate western preconceptions of Arab Others, and hence are of interest to English readers and can as such be marketed and promoted. By focusing on such works, the process of translating and creating a canon of Arabic literature into English can result not in better understanding but in consolidating identitarian and reductive stereotypes of Arab Others. This essay looks at the extra-literary parameters that condition the translation and reception of Arabic literature into English, taking as a case study the contemporary Egyptian novelist Alaa Al-Aswany, whose bestseller The Yacoubian Building has been translated and celebrated as providing a credible portrayal of the social and political malaise in Egypt, and as enabling understanding of the making of a terrorist. However, for textual, contextual and paratextual reasons, the translated text of Al-Aswany's book not only fails to enable understanding in various respects, but also, the essay argues, can block the very possibility of understanding.