The context of translating Contemporary Arabic Literature and the role of the translator as an intercultural mediator

Abstract

The work in hand aims to discuss the context of translating Arabic Literature and the complexities involved in this practice. From a brief analysis of the production and reception of the first editions of The Thousand and One Nights into French and English, we examine the relevance of this process in the understanding of the standards of translating Arabic texts. Considering the historical facts that permeate this practice, as well as the role of the translator as an intercultural mediator, we combine the Orientalism proposed by Edward Said with the theory of Genre of Mikhail Bakhtin. Hence, we approach the translated text in the receiving community in view of the relations that different text genres establish amongst themselves in a determined literary system and the potential of translation as a way of consolidating stereotypes and misrepresenting the Otherness images, as well as to build cultural identities, and to be a form of resistance and develop cultural change and innovation.