Translating Egypt's Revolution
Price:
$29.95 (01)A Publication of The American University in Cairo Press
Description
This unique interdisciplinary collective project is the culmination of research and translation work conducted by American University in Cairo students of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds who continue to witness Egypt's ongoing revolution. This historic event has produced an unprecedented proliferation of political and cultural documents and materials, whether written, oral, or visual. Given their range, different linguistic registers, and referential worlds, these documents present a great challenge to any translator.The contributors to this volume have selectively translated chants, banners, jokes, poems, and interviews, as well as presidential speeches and military communiques. Their practical translation work is informed by the cultural turn in translation studies and the nuanced role of the translator as negotiator between texts and cultures. The chapters focus on the relationship between translation and semiotics, issues of fidelity and equivalence, creative transformation and rewriting, and the issue of target readership. This mature collective project is in many ways a reenactment of the new infectious revolutionary spirit in Egypt today.
Features
- An engaging yet serious attempt to decipher and illuminate for the English-language reader the words, phrases, and writings of the 2011 revolution
- Applicable to courses in linguistics, comparative literature, semiotics, popular Egyptian culture, political humor, and political media
- Explores the various modes of expression of popular protest in modern Egypt
Reviews
"[This book] is timely, fascinating, and applies theoretical insights from Translation Studies to the translation of the rich body of written, oral, and non-verbal communications connected with the Egyptian revolution. The authors (mostly students) are generally current with semiotic/translation theory, and have assembled an impressive quantity of materials that document the revolution and illustrate their larger arguments concerning its specifically Egyptian populist-aesthetic character."-Michael J. Reimer, Associate Professor of History, The American University in Cairo
About the Author(s)
Samia Mehrez is professor of Arabic literature in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilization and director of the Center for Translation Studies at the American University in Cairo. She is the author of Egypt's Culture Wars: Politics and Practice (AUC Press pbk edition, 2010), The Literary Atlas of Cairo (AUC Press, 2010), and The Literary Life of Cairo (AUC Press, 2011).
