Translation, Religion and Identity in Leila Aboulela’s The Translator

This is an anonymous student-written post. For more on The Translator, see this post on challenging stereotypes of Muslim women, and a second on Islam and romantic love here.

The Holy Koran (Qu’ran) by lets.book (Flickr)

Translation takes a number of different forms in Leila Aboulela’s novel The Translator. Whether it is translation of language, religion or culture, as suggested by the title, the concept of translation permeats throughout the novel. Translation and conversion in the novel provides an intriguing insight into not only the disparity between Eastern and Western cultures but also views of Western people from an Eastern perspective and vice versa.

Reanimating Desdemona in the Twenty-First Century

This is an anonymous student-written post.

Cabinet card image of German actor Ferdinand Bonn (1861-1933), in character as Othello. TCS 1.2795, Harvard Theatre Collection.

Toni Morrison’s Desdemona, first performed in May 2011, is compelling not only because it ‘talks back’ to Shakespeare’s Othello, but because it answers centuries of racism, blackface performance and problematic representation that have haunted the play’s history.