In search of words: Ghālib Halasā’s translation of La poétique de l’espace by Gaston Bachelard and the debate around space and place in Arabic literary criticism

This article focuses on some terminological and conceptual issues raised by the Arabic translation of Gaston Bachelard’s (1884-1962) La poétique de l’espace, published by the Jordanian critic and novelist Ghālib Halasā (1932-1989) in 1980. Despite the controversial translation choices Halasā made to “domesticise” the French philosopher’s reflections on literary space, his version is still the only one available in Arabic nowadays. This article also investigates the reasons leading the Moroccan critic Ḥasan Najmī, among the others, to accuse Halasā of “high treason” (al-jarīmah al-raf īʽah) against Arabic literature and criticism. This article will consider Halasā’s translation as a remarkable stepping point in the reception of Bachelard’s approach to literary criticism within the Arab world. However, it will also highlight how Halasā recklessly coated Bachelard’s anti-psychologist approach with an existentialist patina, revealing both the cultural tendencies of the time and the translator’s personal inclinations as a (Marxist) novelist.