Through the Translingual Lens: Persian Calligraphy in Mana Neyestani’s L’Araignée de Mashhad

Abstract

This article examines L’Araignée de Mashhad (Neyestani 2017), a graphic narrative by Iranian-born Mana Neyestani, now residing as a political refugee in France. Though he continues to write in Persian, his work is published in French translation, which becomes the source for translations into other languages. This article applies the framework of literary translingualism to shed new light on Neyestani’s L’Araignée de Mashhad. Literary translingualism, which encompasses “literature written in a language not native to the author, in two languages, or in a mix of languages” (Kellman and Lvovich 2015, 152), brings into sharper focus the narrative’s languaging practices, both beyond traditional approaches to graphic narratives and in relation to the global literary market. The translingual nature of L’Araignée de Mashhad emerges from its publication process, where the “original” is already a translation. This article argues that the untranslated Persian calligraphy within is neither an expression of cultural exoticism nor a form of multilingualism that a reader could overlook through glossing. Instead, it disrupts the ideology of monolingualism, redefines the meaning of “multi-” in multilingualism, and situates language within a broader spectrum of semiotic practices. It also demonstrates how those unfamiliar with Persian script may still access its aesthetic and narrative functions by drawing on the visual in the graphic narrative.