Book Review- The Translator

Title of book: The Translator

Author: Leila Aboulela

Date of Review: June 23, 2019

I got this book from Stephanie Schechner (Professor of French, Widener U) in April 2019 when I visited Widener and she was giving away her books. I got quite a few, including poetry by Keats, translations of Dhammapada and Upanishads, and more for Neeru..

I picked this book as the author is from Sudan and I am usually interested in reading work by authors from countries I have never been exposed to. It gives me insight into their culture and thoughts and it is fascinating. I also like Muslim writers, including Naguib Mahfouz. Though Mahfouz’s work was translated from Arabic into English and something must be lost in translation. This book is written in English by Aboulela and it is her first novel. J.M. Coetzee wrote about this book, “A story of love and faith all the more moving for the restraint with which it is written.” There is restraint in the writing.

This book is about Sammar (the eponymous translator) who works in a university in Aberdeen as a translator of Arabic text into English for a professor, Rae Isles. Rae is an expert in Middle-East studies and has done extensive research on Islam. She is a Sudanese widow, whose husband (a cousin and childhood sweetheart) dies in an accident in Aberdeen where they came for his medical residency. She has a son Amir who she leaves with his grandmother and mother-in-law in Khartoum, while she returns to Aberdeen to escape the wrath of her mother-in-law who is angered by Sammar’s thoughts of remarrying a much older man and becoming his third wife. Sammar and Rae slowly fall in love and it is expressed beautifully and with restraint, mainly from Sammar’s point of view. But the major hurdle is her inability to go beyond the fact that he is not a Muslim. She is an observant and devout follower, who practices her faith with such diligence at all times.

Aboulela describes the accentuation of Sammar’s depression in the cold, grey climate of Aberdeen as she yearns for the intense sun and heat of Khartoum. Sammar is somewhat a prototype of a Muslim woman. She is demure and shy and is usually measuring her words and environment. Not expressing her anger even though she has intense emotions about certain things. She craves the state of marriage and envies people who are married, especially after her widowhood even as she does not miss her husband per se. She is ready to marry a much older man for the safety of a marriage, even though people are shocked around them. Not a feminist heroine for sure. So however unfair it may sound, I found hard to sympathize with her. And the major issue for me is her insistence on Rae’s conversion to Islam for them to marry. She is not seeking to work or have an identity of her own. So she is not at all inspiring. Characters do not have to inspire always but certain mindsets put me off.

I found the description of Khartoum interesting. It has the issues of developing countries, with electricity cuts, scarcity of employment, and increased urbanization and loss of spaces. It is mentioned at least twice how they would all sleep on the rooftops or in the gardens during hot summer nights but with building of apartments, it is no longer possible.

Aboulela’s writing style flows smoothly from streets of Aberdeen to Cairo to Khartoum, and within the recesses of Sammar’s memories. One surprising thing is the indifference of Sammar for her son, Amir. She even yells at him right after her husband’s death at seeing him play, “why didn’t you die instead of Tarig [her husband]…you are easily replaceable”. She repairs her relationship with him later. The family dynamics in Khartoum are described well. People say the meanest things to each other sometimes in frustration, and then in at least one case, their relationship improves and mellows right after these incidents, contrary to expectation.

There were several descriptions about Islam (and Hadiths) with emphasis on The Truth and how others (non-Muslims) need to realize it. There is a moving paragraph (pg 63) where a character who loses his infant son is comforted by his friends. “The children who die will intercede for their parents. They will stand at the gates of Paradise and refuse to go in without their mothers and father, cry out wanting them, and Allah will grant them their wish.”

Recommended? Yes. It is the first time I read a writer from Sudan and it gave me a peek into their life. There are a lot of similarities with the other eastern countries, and something I have read earlier as well.