Advocacy for the Palestinian Situation via Translation of Palestinian Authors into English

Abstract

Abstract

The importance of English-language translation of Palestinian authors in shaping Palestinian identity has long been a controversial subject hampered in part by the lack of an empirical and reliable digital database encompassing all of the Arabic-Palestinian literary titles translated into English from 1948 until the time of writing (i.e. late 2019). Thus, I aim herein to conduct a data-mining project which would itself advance the Palestinian question and raise the profile of the Palestinian literati alike. According to the idea that the Palestinian literary body is a quilt stitched with disillusionments and presents an entire picture of Palestinians under the circumstances of exile, occupation, deportation, mass killing, this research project harnesses the digital humanities to build a digital archive up whereby lay readers and relevant authorities can track the developments of Palestinian literature presented in English translation throughout the last seventy years. By doing so, non-Arabic speaking audience could be kept informed on any developments in that respect. Over 1100 Palestinian literary entries in English translations, mostly single poems and short stories, have been recorded in this research project’s digital catalogue. This research adopts a variety of methods to arrive at the numbers of Arabic-Palestinian titles presented in English translations from 1948 up until to now. I did thousands of searches to gather as many names of Palestinian authors as I could. For that purpose, I used Facebook accounts, email addresses, phone calls, internet searches and websites. With the help of the eScience-Centre of the University of Tübingen, I was able to construct the digital database to map the accumulated archive of Palestinian literary categories in English translations. Overall, I conclude that Palestinian literature in English-language translations is approximately 4.6% of the total numbers of Arabic-Palestinian literary works, and such English translations should be visible to a non-Arabic speaking readership. It is also hoped this digital resource will let cultural institutions, authors, literary scholars, translation students and amateurs get opportunity of the most required data to do further research in the area of Palestinian-English translation literature.