Writings on Translation

An exploration of the philosophical dimensions of translation, celebrating it as a practice that preserves and proliferates cultural differences.

Abdessalam Benabdelali is a revered Moroccan philosopher and translator whose work maps an invaluable history of the status of translation in contemporary Arabic thought and language. Bringing together essays from two linked Arabic works by Benabdelali—On Translation and Hosting the Stranger—this volume represents one of the first extended philosophical explorations of translation by a contemporary Arab philosopher. These works reframe Arabic and European cultural histories around translation to counter hegemonic discourses and celebrate translation as a form of philosophical thought and practice, one that both preserves and proliferates difference.

Whether discussing eighteenth-century European perceptions of Arabic culture, classical Arabic literature and its express intent to resist all translation, or contemporary Arabic authors who write in anticipation of translation, Writings on Translation nimbly outlines the key philosophical questions at stake in translation. It concludes with an impassioned argument for translations that “host the stranger” and allow texts to “lift off and migrate.”