ABSTRACT
Hassan reminds that translation needs constant travelling between source and target languages, interpretations that are zooming in on historical context, which is situated, yet always incomplete. By contrast, argues Hassan, divine translation negates human agency, interrupts history, and supersedes all worldly affiliations—the very definition of a miracle. Nonetheless, Hassan himself contends that The Translator is a translational novel on several levels. Aboulela’s characters show, says Hassan “the limits of translation, and construct new models of identity based on culturalexchange and mutual transformation.” The version of Islam propagated in Aboulela’s fiction—and this is where she differs radically from her Sudanese predecessor, Salih—involves a negation of personal freedom, since it is presented as incompatible with Islam. According to Hassan, the novel’s translational project is a success: “this new kind of literature,” notes Hassan, has broken through a prejudicial barrier and conveyed or translated an experience that cannot be contained within the dominant stereotypes.
