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the New Books Network.
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C
Hello everybody, and welcome back to New Books Network. I'm Turo Mende, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to translator AR Neil Hewison about his work on the novel the Country Doctor's Tale by Mohammed Mansi Khandil, forthcoming at Syracuse University Press. Thank you for joining us at the podcast today.
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B
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [02:00]
C
You served as an editorial director of the American University in Cairo Press in the past. And you translated several Egyptian novels in English too, as far as I know, correct?
- [02:13]
B
That's correct, Yes. I was with the AUC Press for more than 30 years as editorial director and as a kind of a sideline, because I was working with translations and publishing. So I became interested in translating and I kind of started trying a few for myself.
- [02:35]
C
Thank you. Thank you so much. And before we dwell into the conversation, we decided to read a passage from the forthcoming book. If you want, you can start with reading that for us. That would be great. Thank you. So much.
- [02:50]
B
Okay, just finally chosen a passage from close to the beginning of the book. The doctor who is the central character in the novel has just arrived in this remote village in Upper Egypt to run a clinic that's been closed for several months. It's quite run down. He himself has just been released from prison for political activity as a student, and he's been more or less banished to this remote station in in the south of the country. So it's he's just arrived, the caretaker has shown him to his quarters above the clinic, and he's it's because it's been closed for months, it's dirty, there are rats, he's very uncomfortable, and the caretaker has just left him to sleep the night. So we'll start from there. He muttered a few words I didn't catch, backed away, then left the room and shut the door quickly behind him. Exhausted, I sat down on one of the chairs, no more stable on its legs than I was myself. I could hear the rats gnawing at the bottom of the door, trying to find a gap to squeeze through into the room. I examined the door nervously. The lower part of it was reinforced with a sheet of metal, which the rats would not be able to chew through. That reassured me a little, and I began looking around. I left the lamp lit. I didn't dare put it out, and threw myself on the bed and closed my eyes. For the last few months I had been used to sleeping on a damp floor with nothing between me and it but a blanket. Just a blanket full of holes and only fetid, stale air to breathe. I had accustomed myself to that, like the maggots of the earth, and like all the other maggots inside the cramped cells, there were long days in which I lost all hope, waiting for whatever torture would be visited on me at any time. It wasn't just my body that was worn out. My soul was also under assault. The sounds of the night provoked mortal terror in my inner being. Inspections, insults, violent kicks. I closed my eyes and tried to drive all the images of abuse from my mind. I don't know how I got out of that miserable swamp. Some kind of rare miracle. One of those random pardon orders, just as random as the original detention order, pushed me out of the darkness of that prison, clutching my papers, my birth certificate, my graduation certificate, and the permit from the doctor certificate. Doctor Syndicate Sorry to practice medicine, but all of that still wasn't enough for me to be reappointed to my old physician. The clerk looked at me from behind his desk, stacked with files, all these papers are not sufficient. The most important paper has to come from downstairs. You need to go downstairs to obtain the approval. I hadn't known there was a downstairs. I went down there thinking I was going to the archives. But this downstairs was different. It was much cleaner and grander than the other floors. The red carpet, potted plants, strange paintings on the walls. It was as if they were expecting my arrival. The state security officer who received me had my personal file in front of him. From his position downstairs, he held sway over all the upper floors. Every decision made in this building had to pass across his desk and was subject to his approval. He was civil and firm. He leafed through my papers and spoke concisely. It was the people closest to you who gave your way. That's why we're sure of our sources. He didn't name any names, but these few words robbed me of my trust in everybody, even myself. I looked at him carefully as he took my papers from me and said, you were a troublemaker. As a student, you never let a demonstration or a symposium or a wall newspaper go by without taking part. You announced your sedition openly. Prison was only a mild punishment, but your soul is in our hands now. I remain silent. I felt as though, with his arrogance, he really did have custody of my soul. He shuffled my papers with the amusement of someone playing with a person's fate. We'll let you go for now. We'll send you far away, but you won't be out of our sight. Upper Egypt is the land of reform and correction for all troublemakers. It's almost like a prison. He laughed coarsely. But I needed a new land, a different place to plant. My feet silenced out my papers, but kept them in front of him and spoke again. The first time we give a warning, but the second time we strike. Take your papers and go to your posting. And remember that we've granted you a second chance. I took my papers and ascended to the miserable offices on the upper floors, where instead of red carpets and potted plants, there were asthmatic old functionaries. I signed all the papers they presented me with and all the pledges of good behavior. And I went off to find out how to get to this village where I came in search of a world that held no trace of my old memories. Without any hope of return or any certainty of landing on my feet, my wearied body refused to relax, as if I had simply been transferred to a new cell. In the distance, lone wolves howled and the dogs responded with the hysteria of barking. Between monaster spirits of the dead. The night wore on, and I tossed and turned on a dusty bed, couldn't tear myself away from that pervading darkness. The dark of the prison was mixed up with the dark of the village night. There were no dreams, but there were nightmares. I opened my eyes with a start and looked around, trying to recognize where I was. The lamp light was fading, the mantle turning a dark yellow on the point of burning out, so I quickly extinguished it. The dawn gloaming revealed details of the place. I went out onto the balcony. A gray luminance delicately steeped through the fog that lay on the fields and enveloped the tall palms. Despite the overall stillness, I could make out the figures of villagers leaving their low houses and heading for the fields. They walked in groups, one after the other, men, women, and behind them, the children and the animals. The men carried their mattocks and hoes, the women carried bundles of food, and the animals walked with bowed heads, knowing that the long day of toil lay ahead of them. At the end of the procession were the elderly, some of them leaning on sticks and struggling to walk like newly resurrected dead. They all shuffled along at the birth of the light, as they had done for thousands of years, a mythical ritual performed with a glory befitting the first moment of creation. I watched them in wonder, unable to move, and they proceeded, one group after another, in tune with the movement of the world, a cycle completing its revolution through a distance and history. Not one of them turned in my direction. No one saw me. From my experience of life, I knew what kind of food was in those bundles, nothing more than bread and pickled turnip. Even a piece of cheese would appear beyond their means. How did they stay alive year after year on these meager rations? I stood there until their living column disappeared and dispersed among the fields. The grainers receded and the folk took on a padded red as the gray melted away and the sun's rays began to spread from behind the trunks of the palms. My first day was beginning.
- [10:04]
C
Thank you so much, Neil, for reading us these passages so the reader, the listener, can expect what to read when they get the novel. So the novel was first published, I think, in 2020, in Arabic. And what made you what sparked you to translate this kind of work? What was the initial thought for you while reading the book in Arabic?
- [10:32]
B
Well, I came across the book totally by accident. I mean, I was familiar with the author before because when I was working with the AUC Press, we had published a translation of a novel of his back in 2008 called Moon Over Samantha. And I knew he was a leading and respected author and very well admired. I was browsing in a bookstore in Cairo and just this, the, the, the book just stood out for me on, on the table. It was. People always say don't judge a book by its cover, but that's how we always judge books initially when we first see them, we judge it by its cover. The COVID attracted me. I picked it up, I read the description on the back. I knew it was by this author who was a well respected. And I thought, okay, I'll give this a try. Looks interesting. So I bought it, took it home and read it. And as I read it, I was just more and more impressed by the way the story was told, the characters that come through, the fate of this central protagonist and so on, and of the writing. But also because it was, it's in a way, quite a rare novel being set in, in a rural setting in Upper Egypt. There are not that many Egyptian novels from the, from the village setting. And because my own experience of Egypt, when I first came to Egypt many, many years ago, I was living in a rural setting. I was in the foum where I visited villages, small villages like. Very liked this one in Upper Egypt. And so I had a sort of connection to the, to the setting of the, of the novel as well, with experience of village life. And also because the novel is set around 1980, 1981, which was the time when I just arrived in Egypt and was settling in and learning about Egyptian life and culture and language. So there were these connections for me and I just thought, this is a great novel, I really want to translate it. So I started translating. I mean, I talked to the author first to make sure that he was happy with me to do this and also that to be sure that nobody else was working on the translation already. And he was very welcoming and gave me a lot of support. And so I embarked on the translation and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
- [13:03]
C
Thank you so much, Neil. And when you start translating such a complex novel, do you go bit by bit, like by passage from passage, or like from chapter to chapter? How do you proceed? Like when, how do you start beginning translating such a work?
- [13:19]
B
Well, you go through quite a number of drafts and I just worked through basically page by page and did as much as I could concentrate on for a few hours at a time. However long, however far I got it was, you know, maybe I do a few pages at a time every day and just initially just a rough draft, build up the book that way. And then I would Read through and revise and improve and amend as much as possible on my own. But then I worked with native speaker friends chapter by chapter. I had two particularly good friends who worked with me, helped me out a lot on this translation. What I would do was having finished a draft of a chapter sfit with one of my friends, either in person or on the phone or whatever, if, wherever we were. And I would read out my draft translation while my friend was reading the Arabic text, and they would be able to tell me if I'd gone wrong anywhere. They'd say, oh, you missed that or you misunderstood that. Or they would say, well, maybe a better way to do it would be this. They. They both had very good English as well as excellent Arabic skills, so they were able to help me with bits and especially also I could go to them when something wasn't quite clear to me. Like, very often when you read an Arabic text, you may understand the words, but perhaps you don't understand what's behind them, what's the author's meaning. And so you need a bit of help sometimes unraveling things to get it into the best shape. So I go through chapter by chapter, getting my native speaker friends to help me review it and to be sure I was getting everything right. And after that, then once or twice more again. So smoothing out. You leave it for a while. You. You want to leave it behind for perhaps a few weeks and then come back to it with a fresh eye because that's when you read it to yourself and you think, oh, that doesn't quite ring right in English, or I want to. And it's no longer then about the accuracy of the translation. It's about the expression in English and what comes across naturally and smoothly. And so you keep on revising. And to be honest, that process never ends. Even now, as the book is about to go to press and I'm reading, I finished reading page proofs and the book is now being printed. As I'm rereading now, I still see things. I think, oh, I wish I'd changed this or adjusted that. You never stop.
- [15:59]
A
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- [16:27]
C
Experian and coming to the language of the novel, is it like, written in Modern Standard Arabic or is it, like, has colloquial passages as well? How would you characterize the language of the author's style?
- [16:44]
B
Yeah, it's all in Modern Standard Arabic, even the dialogue. You find some writers, and this is true, the novels I've translated in the past by Yusuf Idris and Yusuf Abaria, that they write the descriptive passages in Modern Standard Arabic, but the dialogue in colloquial. And for me, in a way that's easier because I learned Arabic colloquial Arabic first, before I learned a modern standard. But this novel is entirely in Modern Standard, even the dialogue. But it's fairly straightforward, simple language. There's nothing elaborate about it. The writer doesn't show off linguistically. He. He's very. He wants to get his story across clearly and simply, quite simply. So language is not that difficult. But as I said, there. There are times when you come across a sentence or a passage where you the. The words you get. But what's behind it and what's he actually saying? So you have to sort of think and interpret a little bit as well.
- [17:57]
C
And I mean, I think the author himself was a doctor previously as well, before becoming a literary author. Do you think there's some autobiographical character development in the protagonist from the author as well, or is it purely fictional? The main protagonist, it's certainly based on
- [18:25]
B
his own experience because as a young doctor, one of his early postings was to a small village in Up Regent in the. In the governorate of Minya. And so he was running a small clinic in this. In this village. So a lot of the direct experiences, like you, you'll find there are passages which describe particular ailments, illnesses, injuries, scorpions, things, snake bites, whatever. And there's a lot of discussion about Bill Hart here in the canals, in the village and so on, and all that's obviously based on his own experience as a doctor in that time, in that place. It's certainly not autobiographical. He did not do any of the things that this doctor did in terms of. In relations to people he was meeting and so on. I mean, he didn't have a love affair with a young nurse or things like this. But I did ask him about some of the. I said, like the character of the superintendent police, the police chief, who's this really obnoxious, nasty character who tries to make a mess of everybody's life. And. And the passage about the fraudulent elections where he's. He's forced into helping to forge elections. And I said. I asked him about the character of the superintendent. I said, did you make that up or elaborated? No, I said, I met a. I knew a police chief exactly like that. It's based on him. So this is. There was a perv. A character in that line. The. The others, I don't know, the Gypsy Queen. I didn't ask him about her, whether he came across anybody like that. But no, he's a. He's a fiction writer and he, you know, a lot. It's mostly imagination, but based on his own experiences, so certainly not autobiographical.
- [20:23]
C
Yeah. And you said earlier that it's centered, of course, in Upper Egypt, the setting of the novel. What kind of issues does he address? The lives of the people there? And does he criticize the lives in the rural areas? Or how would you describe the themes and subjects that he addresses in the novel?
- [20:51]
B
I think, no, it's not critical, it's descriptive. I think he reflects really quite accurately on what, to me is a real mix of beauty and cruelty in the Egyptian rural setting that he sympathizes certainly with the plight of the miserable, abject poverty of the lot of the people that he is living among and the diseases and the injuries and difficulties that they go through and how they just face life stoically. Like in the passage we just read the bit about, you know, they couldn't afford any decent food, just a bit of bread and pickle, turnips and. No, the only, you know, he's critical of, clearly of people like the superintendent, police. He doesn't come out, you know, he's a. An object of almost ridicule. But no, the villagers and the farmers, he. He describes their life, I think, very clearly in the very poor setting and the diseases that they face. But no, he's. And, and because he lived among them, I think he has this sympathy. There's an empathy in there. It's empathetic and. Yeah, I think that, you know, that's. I think it is a very. Because I've. I've had quite a lot of experience of village life and I visited villages like his. I mean, years ago, small villages where I would visit friends and stay overnight, where the whole village, there was no electricity, as in this village in the novel. Even, you know, back in the time that's just set 1980-81, there were still plenty of places like that. And so I've seen life in villages very similar to the One that he's describing, and I think he describes it very well.
- [22:59]
C
Thank you so much, Neil. And how would you describe the character development, especially of the doctor, of the protagonist in the novel? Does he go through certain developments that he is different from the beginning in the novel than from the end at the novel after staying in the rural area? Or would you describe it more like a static development? How would you analyze his character?
- [23:28]
B
Well, I think he's something of an ambiguous character because on the one hand, he has genuine sympathy for his patients and he tries his best to help them with whatever meager means he has at his disposal, the medicines he's able to get to be able to give out and to help them and to save people's lives who've been stung by scorpions and so on. So he has this very, very empathetic sire, but at the same time, I think he's not really very aware early in the novel, certainly not very aware of his own inner motivations, like his obsession with this young nurse. It comes out of his own inner desires and lust. Basically. It starts off really as a. It's not a love story. It's a lust story. And he thinks later on he thinks it's turned into love. But also the. The motivations of the young nurse are quite complicated as well. And we learn a lot about what. What she's going through and. And how she's relating to him on the basis of her own experiences and so on. I mean, I don't want to give too much away of the plot, but he. He has various revelations and he comes to recognize various truths by the end of. Of the novel. And so, yes, there is a. There is a character development. We don't know what happens after the end, what he goes on to do. Presumably he leaves the village, goes on somewhere else. And perhaps he's learned some valuable lessons, we hope. But yeah, no, he. There. There is certainly development of character. Yes.
- [25:24]
C
And I mean, you translated several Egyptian novelists in the past as well. How would you kind of situate this novel in the overall literal landscape that you find yourself in with the other authors that you translated? Is it like, can you compare them to other authors or is it standing out in comparison to other authors? How would you describe the novel in the sense?
- [25:55]
B
Well, I think being having a rural setting. This in itself is quite unusual. You think of people like to Hakim and his diary of a country prosecutor Mos the days. There are certain classic novels that are very well known. They've come from that setting. But then most of the novels that I've come across tend to be urban. And of course Nagib Mahouz, all his, all his writings were set in urban, mostly in Cairo, in the city. So it stands out from that point of view. Of the novels I've translated before, one by Yusuf Idris called City of Love and Ashes is set in Cairo, but it's sort of marginal characters, quite interesting. And then Yousef Abaria's novel Wedding, Wedding Song, sorry, Wedding Night is set in a small town. It's not quite rural, but it's a small town in the delta and so quite sort of semi rural characters. So it relates to that. I think, I think this, that's where it sits in, in this, it's, it's part of the literary scene. He's a, you know, the author is well known, well respected. His previous work, one of his prize winning or shortlisted works was the Cloudy Day on the Western Shore, which is set in Luxor on the west bank of Luxor. So no, I think it's all very interesting. Yeah, I think that's, it's the rural setting that makes this novel stand out, plus the quality of the writing and the, and the character development. Now it's the wonderful characters in this, in this novel. I think it's really. And it doesn't. What I particularly like about it, it doesn't go in the direction you think it's going to go ever. I mean, the first time I read it, when he sees the nurse for the first time and thinks, oh, she's very beautiful and I want to get to know her, I kind of, I had a sinking feeling then I thought, oh, this is going to turn out to be tedious love story. And of course it doesn't because it doesn't go in that direction. And every, you know, there's never a point where you think you know what's going to happen next. Basically even right to the very end of the novel, you, you don't know what's going to happen next. That's what I love about it.
- [28:27]
C
Thank you so much, Neil. And coming to the last two questions, this book is now published with your university press, which is like more an academic publisher. And do you have any advice for young translators who want to start out in publishing novels or short stories? Do you tend to like connect more with academic presses or like more like general presses? How would you proceed? And if you have a novel that you want to translate and publish it in English?
- [29:01]
B
Well, there is a small number of publishers who, who will publish Arabic novels in Translation One, of course, is the AUC Press where I used to work. Syracuse University Press is another. There are one or two other, like Sake in. In London, Saki Books and Interlink in America is another one. So it's no good just going to any publisher and thinking, oh, because all publishers have their own special interests. And so you need to do a bit of research first and see which one might want to publish your translation. When I started or when I decided I wanted to publish this translation, I went actually first to my old press, AEC Press, because I thought it would fit into their Hupo line. But they were not confident about the. The North American market. They liked the book, but they. They just didn't have the confidence to go ahead, sadly. But then. So I went to Syracuse because I knew that they had published a translation of a novel, previous novel by the same author. So they must have an interest to start with. So you look for a kind of connection. So if you, if you pick a certain author, first of all, has that author been translated before? And who trans. Who published that translation? And those would be the first people to go to Syracuse, you know, reviewed the novel and they reviewed my translation and they agreed to publish it, which was great. I was very happy about that. But there was one of the great translators that we lost a few years ago, Humphrey Davis, who was a leading translator of Arabic to English novels, always said, rule number one of translating is never start a translation until you've got a contract. Now, it sounds like great advice. And if you're a working translator who is doing this for a living, of course that's true. Why waste your time on books that you don't have a contract for? In my case, because I'm retired and I'm at leisure. I was able to choose the book I wanted to translate and I started translating it before I had a publisher lined up. You wouldn't normally do that. You'd try and get what you do. You do a sample translation of say, a few pages or a chapter or whatever it might be, and write a synopsis of the whole novel and put this together with your cv, with the author's cv, and send this to the publisher that you think might be interested in this book. And that's the best way to start and really probably follow Humphrey's advice and don't start before you got a contract.
- [31:50]
C
Thank you so much, Neil. And do you after. Well, this novel will be published, I think, in April, the latest. And do you have anything you are working on next or are you taking a break from translating other novels.
- [32:07]
B
I was lucky to translate some other novels. I'm looking around. I haven't found the one deck that I want to do. I kind of wait for things to fall into my lap. I'm not in a rush. I've got plenty of other things to do. But I enjoy translating. It's a challenge. It's a mental challenge. It's often like doing a really good crossword, where you've got these challenges so you understand what's being said. But how do I express it in English? It's not just a matter of word for word here or there. You've got to get into the meaning of the whole thing and then put it out in English. And so you've got to be really invested in the book. You have to have a real interest in the book and be committed. I wouldn't just pick up any book and start translating. So I'm still looking around and I'm looking forward to the next project, whatever that may be.
- [33:08]
C
Thank you so much, Neil, for joining us to the podcast today, and it was a real pleasure to talk with you about your work on this novel. Thank you so much.
- [33:17]
B
Well, thank you. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you.