WRITINGS ON TRANSLATION

An exploration of the philosophical dimensions of translation, celebrating it as a practice that preserves and proliferates cultural differences.

Abdessalam Benabdelali is a revered Moroccan philosopher and translator whose work maps an invaluable history of the status of translation in contemporary Arabic thought and language. Bringing together essays from two linked Arabic works by Benabdelali—On Translation and Hosting the Stranger—this volume represents one of the first extended philosophical explorations of translation by a contemporary Arab philosopher. These works reframe Arabic and European cultural histories around translation to counter hegemonic discourses and celebrate translation as a form of philosophical thought and practice, one that both preserves and proliferates difference.

Whether discussing eighteenth-century European perceptions of Arabic culture, classical Arabic literature and its express intent to resist all translation, or contemporary Arabic authors who write in anticipation of translation, Writings on Translation nimbly outlines the key philosophical questions at stake in translation. It concludes with an impassioned argument for translations that “host the stranger” and allow texts to “lift off and migrate.”

Abdessalam Benabdelali is a professor in the Faculty of Letters at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, and editor-in-chief of Pensée et Critique. His notable works include Political Philosophy of Al-Farabi and The Mythology of Reality, between Connection and Separation.

Marouane Zakhir is associate professor of English at Chouaib Doukkali University in El-Jadida Morocco, where he is also an active member of the Applied Language and Culture Studies  Research Lab.

Christian Hawkey is a poet, translator, and educator. He has written several full-length poetry collections, including Sift, as well as the widely celebrated genre-defying book Ventrakl. He lives in Berlin, Germany. 

Brahim El Guabli is chair and associate professor of Arabic studies at Williams College. He is the author of Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship after State Violence and cofounder and coeditor of Tamazgha Studies Journal.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is university professor in the humanities at Columbia University and the author of many books, including Nationalism and the Imagination, also published by Seagull Books. Spivak was awarded the 2012 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy and the 2025 Holberg Prize. In 2013, she received the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award.