Paul Bowles: Translating from Tangier

Allen Hibbard

doi:10.5007/2175-7968.2018v38n1p19

Abstract

This essay examines the complex relationships between American writer Paul Bowles and Moroccan writers/storytellers whose works he translated (Ahmed Yacoubi, Larbi Layachi, Mohammed Mrabet, and Mohamed Choukri), with attention to reasons for Bowles’s turn to translation, the unique character of his translations of oral stories, the status of the “original” in these cases, as well as the surrounding postcolonial and Orientalist contexts of this translation activity. It advances the notion that Bowles’s translation activity is at once collaborative, dialogic, and mutually beneficial, motivated by the translator’s genuine interest in preserving and making more widely available local cultural production that might otherwise have gone unnoticed and unrecorded.

Highlights

Résumé: Cet essai examine les relations complexes existant entre l’écrivain américain Paul Bowles et les écrivains ou conteurs marocains, notamment Ahmed Yacoubi, Larbi Layachi, Mohammed Mrabet, and Mohamed Choukri, dont Bowles a traduit les textes
American writer Paul Bowles lived in Tangier, Morocco more or less continuously from 1947 until his death in 1999
His translation projects seem to have been motivated by the same kinds of concerns and interests that lay behind his interest in preserving indigenous Moroccan music

Summary

Introduction

Résumé: Cet essai examine les relations complexes existant entre l’écrivain américain Paul Bowles et les écrivains ou conteurs marocains, notamment Ahmed Yacoubi, Larbi Layachi, Mohammed Mrabet, and Mohamed Choukri, dont Bowles a traduit les textes. From 1964 to 1992, he translated no fewer than fifteen volumes of fictional work by local Moroccan storytellers and writers, including Ahmed Yacoubi, Larbi Layachi, Mohammed Mrabet, and Mohamed Choukri.

Results

Conclusion