Re-narration in the Translation of Fadwa Tuqan’s Rihla Jabaliyya, Rihla Saʿba: Sira Dhatiyya

Abstract

This study examines the framing strategies used by the translator and publisher to modify the narrative of Fadwa Tuqan's autobiography, Rihla Jabaliyya, Rihla Saʿba: Sira Dhatiyya (1985), in its English translation, A Mountainous Journey (1990), translated by Olive Kenny. Using Mona Baker’s narrative theory (2006), the author identifies alterations in the translation that align with the expectations of Western readership. These framing strategies fall into four main categories: temporal and spatial sequencing, selective appropriation, labelling, and repositioning of participants within the text. The following qualitative analysis reveals that the alterations not only accentuate Western stereotypes of Arabs in general, and Arab women specifically, but also recast the poet’s journey as a feminist journey. The translated narrative is thus imbued with cultural and ideological implications that shape the target language readership. The study concludes that the translation recasts Tuqan’s ontological and political narrative as a flattened feminist narrative, catering to Anglophone readers’ Orientalist, anti-Arab preconceptions. The findings of this study demonstrate the need for future research on the role of translators as activist re-narrators who transmit politically charged subject matter across cultures.