Ten years 9/11. It’s on every TV- and radio programme, in every newspaper. As I arrived at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele last night fort he reading of Saudi novelist Raja Alem, I hadn’t even thought of the date. Looking at the program, it suddenly popped into my mind – did they choose this date on purpose for a Saudi to read? Oh dear. And – oh no, will I have to suffer through an entire event all about 9/11 ... Oh dear, oh dear. That’s not why I came here at all!
But then I’m pleasantly surprised – the whole thing seems thoroughly un-orientalistic. No camels or magic carpets to be seen, the event’s host (very competent, well-prepared and with a pleasant way of interviewing: Arno Widman of the Frankfurter Rundschau) does not make any references to 1001 Nights.
Raja Alem is a very impressive woman – beautiful and with a very strong aura – a textbook west-eastern diva.
Even more impressive: when asked to read from her novel (winner of this years’s arab Booker Prize, „The dove’s necklace“), she does not read, but recite by heart. Only once she misses a word or two, shoots a quick glance at her text, but continues to recite beautifully. Arno Widman seems to be very impressed as well. And yes, she knows almost the whole novel by heart, Alem admits.
Her novel describes her hometown of Makkah in Saudi Arabia. The old Makkah, to be precise, she says. Thentwo main characters grow up in the 50s and 60s in old Makkah, and are now confronted with all the changes in society, technology and morality that the city is affected by. Alem herself was born 1970 and says, she only knows the old Makkah from her grandfather’s and parents’ tales. It is important to keep the memory of this old, magical place alive, says Alem, and this is what she wants to try and do in her books.
Furthermore, in the Dove’s Necklace, there is a murder case, a psychologically disfunctional woman and a love story involving a German doctor. From the short excerpt she reads, we can’t really say much more about the story, except that it is beautifully written in a deeply poetic Arabic. Let’s hope, the translations will be able to maintain this wonderful tone of magical sadness and beauty.
And then Widman finally asks about the date – 9/11- albeit a little ironically (Damn! Was that really neccessary?). Alem reacts pretty calmly and rationally. „It made me realize how quickly something so personal like your religion and your nationality, something that was always very private to you, can become public and looked at as a threat to others. My first reaction was, whenever we travelled, to try and hide our passports just so people wouldn’t immediatelly recognize us as Saudis.“ I nod silently; it’s exactly the way I feel, and I know many, many Arabs, muslims and especially Saudis felt since then.
Anyway – a much more interesting topic (form e as a translator) was the issue of the english translation of one of her novels. Apparently the translator of her book „My 1001 Nights“ had taken many liberties whilst translating and changed a whole lot of things, switched chapters and re-wrote the novel to a large extent, to suit the english readership. This all happened in agreement with the author, Widman explains, non the less Alem admits she was surprised when she first saw the english version of her book. "The translator did not quite understand that I wasn’t being ironic when I wrote about magic, about spirituality. These things really happened in my family in the old days. And yet, the translator changed the whole spirit of the book into some modern, ironic version of Aladdin. There are just some things you cannot understand or translate when you work with a scientific approach to the subject and the language.“
Well, this is basically what I’m saying all the time. Working as a translator, especially in a language that is so far from your own linguistic and cultural background, you need to have a thorough knowledge of the people and the culture you are translating. Otherwise there is no way you will ever become a good translator!
In the end, the whole event only lasted about an hour, quite sad, f you ask me, I had some questions I would have loved to ask (eg are her novels available in Saudi Arabia? And when will the translations be available?)
But, one last thing we are told – Alem and her sister Shadia curated the Saudi pavillion at the Biennale in Venice this year. It looks very interesting, and also seems to be a good enough reason for Italian Vogue to do a beautiful spread on the Saudi sisters. I like! Bring on the Divas!
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen