Abdelkader Sabil

Translating / Rewriting the Other: a Study of Paul Bowles' Translation of Moroccan Texts by Choukri, Mrabet and Charhadi Abdelkader Sabil

This book is a contribution to the burgeoning Moroccan Cultural Studies. It is also a necessary addition to the on-going debate on the role of the "Other" in cultural translation discourse. The book proceeds through using Paul Bowle's translations of Moroccan 'texts' by Mohamed Choukri, Mohamed Mrabet, and Driss Ben Ahmed Charhadi. Taken as fileds of representation of 'Otherness', these 'texts' are placed within the purview of Postcoloniality because that is the only context where representation, identities' confrontation, and power-play hold sway. Translation, in this context, should be understood as a form of 'transformation', 'deformation', displacement and 'accommodation' of 'Otherness'. Being the immediate subjects of these processes, Choukri, Mrabet, and Charhadi turn, in the hands of Paul Bowles, into mute "provinces of knowledge", or "bodyspaces", given voice to give full vent to Bowles' attitudes on Morocco and Moroccans. These attitudes are to meet the western metaphorical expectations of his readership.