This study examines J. M. Coetzee's deployment of reading and writing as dominant motifs in Waiting for the Barbarians. The narrative diffusion of the two motifs of reading and writing in the novel suggests that the colonial encounter is primarily an epistemic one. Moreover, these two motifs yield images of physical and sexual violence. Bodily torture is equated with writing and interrogation with reading. Even sexuality in the novel becomes interchangeable with textuality, and the body of the nameless native girl is transformed into a site for reading and writing violence and sex. History, which also involves writing and reading, is contested in the novel. In Waiting for the Barbarians, writing the history of the Empire and reading the history of the colonized Other are intractable, dialectic poles. The tension between the two is resolved by a third synthetic, unprejudiced form of writing outside history: Waiting for the Barbarians itself.
This article examines the impact of traditional Tafsīr, the exegesis of the Qur’an, on the translation of the Qurʾanic text into English. Caught between the authority of tradition and the sensitivity of translating a sacred text, many translators refrain from practicing interpretation as an integral part of the translation process, whereas others defiantly dismiss the authority of tradition en masse. The significance of the study lies in undermining over-reliance on explanatory texts yields semantically dogmatic interpretations recurrently manifest in the various English renditions of the Qurʾan. The article questions what is called the etic translation that involves translation from the perspective of one who remains an outsider and does not participate in the interpretation. The finding of the study lead to the conclusion that many translations of the Qurʾan disregard possible interpretations because of rehashing interpretations handed down from traditional exegeses. The article also argues that translators have an active, interpretative role in the translation of the Qurʾan. Compatibility with tradition does not mean being constricted exclusively by Tafsīr. Tradition is a frame of reference, a point of departure for new horizons of interpretation where interpretation is viewed as an augmentation to tradition, not sedition.
This article examines the impact of traditional Tafsīr, the exegesis of the Qur’an, on the translation of the Qurʾanic text into English. Caught between the authority of tradition and the sensitivity of translating a sacred text, many translators refrain from practicing interpretation as an integral part of the translation process, whereas others defiantly dismiss the authority of tradition en masse. The significance of the study lies in undermining over-reliance on explanatory texts yields semantically dogmatic interpretations recurrently manifest in the various English renditions of the Qurʾan. The article questions what is called the etic translation that involves translation from the perspective of one who remains an outsider and does not participate in the interpretation. The finding of the study lead to the conclusion that many translations of the Qurʾan disregard possible interpretations because of rehashing interpretations handed down from traditional exegeses. The article also argues that translators have an active, interpretative role in the translation of the Qurʾan. Compatibility with tradition does not mean being constricted exclusively by Tafsīr. Tradition is a frame of reference, a point of departure for new horizons of interpretation where interpretation is viewed as an augmentation to tradition, not sedition.
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