Distributed for Seagull Books
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.”
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.”
240 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2025
Language and Linguistics: Language Studies
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Table of Contents
Elsewhere Texts: General Introduction
Introduction by Brahim El Guabli
BOOK I: On Translation
1.Foreword: The Labyrinths of Translation by Abdelfattah Kilito
2.Introduction: Translation is a Philosophical Question by Abdessalam Benabdelali
3.Translation and Metaphysics
4.Translation and Acculturation
5.In Praise of Betrayal
6.The Double Betrayal
7.The Circle of Translation
8.In the Mirror of the Other
9.The Task of Translation, the Task of Thought
10.The Revival of Poetry
11.The Migration of the Philosophical Text
12.Translation: A Tool for Modernization
BOOK II: Hosting the Stranger
13.Introduction: Does the Original Replace Its Translations?
14.On the Untranslatable
15.Self-Translation
16.On the Original as Plurality
17.Philosophy and Translation
18.Writing in Another Language is Another Writing
19.Suspended Translations
20.Isn’t Translation Itself Creativity?
21.Translation and Philosophy in the Arab World
22.Is Translation Always an Instrument of Dialogue?
23.The Draft-Original
24.When the Copy Surpasses the Original
25.On Translating an Untranslatable “Concept”
26.Addicted Translation
27.Translation and the Notion of the Original
28.Exposure
29.The Virtue of Translation
30.The Language of Translation and the Language of the Original
31.Translation and Identity
32.Hosting the Stranger
Introduction by Brahim El Guabli
BOOK I: On Translation
1.Foreword: The Labyrinths of Translation by Abdelfattah Kilito
2.Introduction: Translation is a Philosophical Question by Abdessalam Benabdelali
3.Translation and Metaphysics
4.Translation and Acculturation
5.In Praise of Betrayal
6.The Double Betrayal
7.The Circle of Translation
8.In the Mirror of the Other
9.The Task of Translation, the Task of Thought
10.The Revival of Poetry
11.The Migration of the Philosophical Text
12.Translation: A Tool for Modernization
BOOK II: Hosting the Stranger
13.Introduction: Does the Original Replace Its Translations?
14.On the Untranslatable
15.Self-Translation
16.On the Original as Plurality
17.Philosophy and Translation
18.Writing in Another Language is Another Writing
19.Suspended Translations
20.Isn’t Translation Itself Creativity?
21.Translation and Philosophy in the Arab World
22.Is Translation Always an Instrument of Dialogue?
23.The Draft-Original
24.When the Copy Surpasses the Original
25.On Translating an Untranslatable “Concept”
26.Addicted Translation
27.Translation and the Notion of the Original
28.Exposure
29.The Virtue of Translation
30.The Language of Translation and the Language of the Original
31.Translation and Identity
32.Hosting the Stranger