Lost or found in translation? La traduzione come atto sovversivo nel romanzo al-Mutarğim al-ḫā’in di Fawwāz Ḥaddād

Every translator is, in a such way, consciously or not, an “unfaithful” missionary between two cultures. Both among the Arab scholars and Western academics, translation has always had an important role: between similarities and differences the literary world has produced a lot of theories about the techniques and the tasks connected to the translator’s work. What happens if an unfaithful translation becomes a metaphor to express the writer’s will to criticize the society where he lives? In al-Mutarğim al-ḫā’in (The Unfaithful Translator, 2008) by the Syrian writer Fawwāz Ḥaddād, the protagonist, Ḥāmid Salīm, voluntarily alters the final of the book he’s translating. From this moment on, he will be victim of persecution by an Organization that deals with literature just in appearance. In this way Fawwāz Ḥaddād proposes a perspective on the political and literary scene of the contemporary Syrian society. The act of betrayal of Ḥāmid Salīm becomes an unusual act of subversion towards the autocratic political system of his country.