This research aims to explore Western fiction translation into Arabic in an Egyptian context during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period commonly known as the Nahḍah (The Arab Renaissance). The main hypothesis is that a sociological approach to the translation activity during the nahḍah period offers a new reading of and a wider perspective on this activity instead of the linguistic and literary-cultural approaches adopted by previous research. In view of this, by drawing on the theoretical and conceptual framework developed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this research seeks to analyse the translation of Western fiction in Egypt during the nahḍah as a socially situated activity. More concretely, it sets this activity in its context of production to (i) identify the social, cultural, linguistic, literary, and political factors that conditioned this activity, (ii) explore the influence of these factors on the translation practices during the time span examined, and (iii) uncover the role of prominent translators in generating and developing this activity in the Egyptian cultural sphere.
The empirical data consist of six case studies investigating both the agency and translation practices of six leading writer-translators during the nahḍah: Yaᶜqūb Ṣarrūf, Najīb Al-Ḥaddād, Ḥāfiẓ ʼIbrāhīm, Muṣṭafā Luṭfī Al-Manfalūṭī, ʼAḥmad Ḥasan Al-Zayyāt, and ʼIbrāhīm ᶜAbd Al-Qādir Al-Māzinī. Using Franco Moretti’s ‘distant reading’ method of macro-analysis and Gérard Genette’s ‘paratext theory’, these data are primarily analysed based on contextual and paratextual material. The analysis showed that there were a number of main determining factors that shaped the genesis and development of translating Western fiction into Arabic in Egypt. These factors included the colonial framework of Egypt under British rule, which had an impact on the socio-cultural sphere, especially on the process of identity formation, leading to different conceptualisations of national identity during the period: Ottomanism/Islamism, Arabism and Egyptianism. This correlated with another key factor: the position of the Arabic language as a central agent in these different versions of national identity. These two factors intersected with other factors, such as the status of the indigenous literature vs. the newly-introduced translated literature, the status of historicity, and the status of morality and edification in the Egyptian cultural sphere during the nahḍah. These factors resulted in a shift of power dynamics in this sphere, which entailed the emergence of different position-taking stances on these dynamics on the part of writers and translators. These position-takings were largely evident in the translation practices adopted, revealing the tension between translation, language and identity. Generally, there was a clear tendency toward the adaptation/arabisation strategy. This arabisation strategy aided the burgeoning literary translation movement from Western languages during the period, which became marked with extensive translation activity. There were other contributing factors to the flourishing of this translation movement: the appearance and proliferation of print media (particularly newspapers and magazines), the nature of the reading public, the kind of education received by both translators and readership, and the sort of Western fiction translated, among other things. The case studies illustrated that the translators’ linguistic and translational practices were significantly influenced by (a) their habitus dispositions and perceptions internalised through socialisation and education, (b) their social trajectories through different fields, and (c) their position-takings on the competing dynamics of Egyptian cultural sphere. They also revealed that those translators had a crucial role in introducing and gaining recognition and acceptance for translated Western fiction as a new literary product in the cultural sphere, although this acceptance was gradual with an apologetic character at first, followed by strong resistance, and lastly a pursuit of total legitimisation of this fiction in the Arabic literary canon. The research concludes that Western fiction translation led to transforming and subverting the target literary system, supplanting indigenous fictional genres, bringing new literary models, developing a simplified form of fuṣḥā Arabic in writing as ‘Modern Standard Arabic’, and giving rise to new Arabic literature.
