Spanish translator Noemi Fierro Bandier won the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in the category of translation from Arabic to Spanish 2023 (Qatari Press)
Spanish translator Noemí Fierro Bandera builds important cultural and civilizational bridges between the Arabic-speaking world and the Spanish-speaking world, based on the texts she translated from Arabic to Spanish, even though she entered the field of translation by “accident” in 2014. To focus her interests on transferring literary models from contemporary Arabic literature to her mother tongue (Spanish).
In this regard, Bandir translated dozens of texts, whether novels, poetry collections, or other short stories.
Previously, Bandera - who was born in 1976 - translated the novel “Days of the Village of Mohsenah” by the Iraqi writer Issa Hassan Al-Yasiri, and her translation reached the short list of the best book translated from Arabic to Spanish on the list of the Arab Studies Academy in Spain. She also translated important texts, including novels by the Saudi novelist. Hani Naqshbandi wrote the novel “Peace” and the novel “Half a Respectable Citizen.” She also translated Alaa Al Aswany’s novel “The Republic as if,” for which she won second place in the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (9th session, Qatar 2023) in the category of translation from Arabic to Arabic. Spanish.
In this regard, Al Jazeera Net conducted a dialogue with the Spanish translator Noemi Fierro Bandier, in order to understand how her relationship with the Arabic language began, how she or he chooses the texts she translates, and whether the translated text turns into a text for the translator or not, so to the dialogue:
How did your relationship with the Arabic language begin? Did it really start by accident?
Yes, my beginning with the Arabic language was a coincidence. I entered the university to study Spanish language and literature, but in the first or second year, I do not remember well. I had to take a compulsory subject as a second language. Like the majority of students, I chose English as my second language, and the experience was not pleasant for me. In summary. Shadeeda failed her last exam and I had two options: either to register again to study the English language or to choose another language. Among the languages included in the program was Arabic, which I had no relationship with, but the program contained one or two sentences written in Arabic. Calligraphy amazed me and I fell in love with this language. Since then, I began to meditate on it. I used to tell myself that these letters are not a language, but rather an art. The beauty of calligraphy led me to study the Arabic language, and then my relationship with the Arabic language began. Then I graduated from the Spanish language and graduated from the Arabic language. in the University.
Calligraphy amazed me and I fell in love with this language. Since then, I began to contemplate it. I used to tell myself that these letters are not a language, but rather an art. The beauty of calligraphy led me to study the Arabic language, and then my relationship with the Arabic language began.
Can we consider that your relationship with the world of translation also began by coincidence?
My relationship with translation began in a strange way. I was residing in Kuwait as a result of obtaining a scholarship from Kuwait University to study the Arabic language for non-native speakers. In Kuwait, I discovered something strange. There was a sand storm that prevented us from going out for two days, and we were staying in the student housing. My presence in Kuwait coincided with the presence of... Kuwait Book Fair, where I acquired the novel “Ayoub Shaheen” by its owner, Salem Al Tuwaih.
Because of my great admiration for the novel, I set about reading it and finishing it in two days, and then I began to think about how I could transfer these ideas and these characters scattered throughout the novel into my mother tongue (Spanish), and from this coincidence I began to think about translation, and about becoming a translator even though I was not. I know something about publishing houses and translation as a profession, and based on this coincidence, I began to think about taking up translation as a profession through which I would transfer ideas from Arabic to Spanish.
The Arabic novel is the only written document that expresses the Arab reality and life within it. This is what I discovered and liked and made me continue translating, because the Arabic story and novel are influential and carry within them many lessons that can be learned about life and its process. Arabic literature for me is a gateway to continue learning and staying close to it. With the Arab peoples
You say that what drew your attention to Arabic literature is that it is close to life. How is that?
In this regard, I agree with what Dr. (Palestinian critic) Faisal Darraj said, that the Arabic novel is the only written document that expresses the Arab reality and life within it. This is what I discovered and liked and made me continue translating, because the Arabic story and novel are influential and carry within them many lessons that can be learned. About life and its transformation. Arabic literature is a gateway for me to continue learning and remain close to the Arab peoples.
In fact, anyone who looks at your choices of novels will see that you choose novels that monitor the Arab reality and try to show the human being as a human being, and try to show the interactions of the Arab person with authority or history, and perhaps here we return to the novel that you translated by Hani Naqshbandi, entitled “Peace.” This novel may appear The relationship between the West and the East, between the Andalusian civilization and the Arab person, nostalgia and his relationship with the past, and at the same time the novel sheds light on an important issue that there is a curse that rebuilding the Alhambra is nothing but a curse that renews the dispute between the self and the other and between the Muslim Arab and the Christian West. Why did you choose this novel and how did you translate it?
We translated the novel Salam within the publications of the University of Alicante. It is a very profound novel that carries within it a message that pushes us all to think (we are the Spaniards and you are the Arabs). Hani Naqshbandi (may God have mercy on him) contacted me “by chance” to translate the novel, as I had read his works before we became... Friends, we talked a lot about the novel, and we met directly. These meetings and the friendship that linked me with him helped me a lot to enter the world of Naqshbandi smoothly and enter into the atmosphere of the novel, which made us both proud of the published text of the translation of the novel.
The novel is distinguished by the presence of important elements sufficient to attract the attention of Arab and Spanish readers, because the Alhambra Palace around which the story revolves is located in Spain, “Andalusia,” and although the novel was received with criticism by readers and critics, it is an important and courageous novel similar to the character of Hani Naqshbandi, who was characterized by courage, as he does not seek to To satisfy critics and readers as much as he seeks to communicate his distinctive ideas.
Although the novel contains important ideas, it makes the reader laugh because of the many funny situations within it, because Naqshbandi can address the hearts and minds of his readers, whether they are Arabs or Spaniards, which makes me proud of this work.
In the novel "Salam" we find Hani Naqshbandi taking us on a journey to search for peace. Is this journey a journey to search for a lost identity? Or is it a journey that reflects the futility of being dependent on the past and forgetting the present that we must live in?
I agree with the last thing you said, and I believe that it is the essence of the message of the novel “Salam”. Naqshbandi had a clear picture of his identity, but he wanted to provide the reader in Arabic with a view of the history of Andalusia and its exploits (such as the Alhambra), to push him towards thinking, and Naqshbandi used this approach because he realizes that The past culture dominates the Arab world, as the Arab lives in the past more than in the present, and I believe that this is actually true, as the view of the Arabs and the Spaniards on Andalusia is not the same. There is a big difference in the two views of Andalusia.
Certainly, whoever visits Andalusian landmarks falls in love with them, but the Spaniards’ view of the Andalusian era remains completely different from the Arabs’ view of it, and here I do not evaluate which of the two is more correct, but I am interested in drawing attention to their difference, and one of the reasons for this difference lies in the nature of the difference in our view of the past, and how The past can affect the present.
Andalusia embodied a model of the convergence of cultures, civilizations and religions, and here the discussion begins among specialists to scrutinize such questions further, and to determine the nature and limits of the coexistence that Andalusia embodied.
Building the Andalusian civilization was a joint effort between the inhabitants of both sides of the Mediterranean. Don’t you see that returning to the Andalusian moment is important, because it is a return to a common point between two different civilizations in order to build channels and bridges for cultural communication?
I completely agree with you. Andalusia is an important cultural meeting point that can be built upon in order to extend bridges of cultural communication. Andalusia embodied a model for the convergence of cultures, civilizations and religions, and here the discussion begins between specialists to scrutinize such questions further, and to determine the nature and limits of the coexistence that Andalusia embodied, and in this regard. I cannot offer much because I am not a specialist in the history of Andalusia, but I agree with you regarding the fact that this civilization, which extended for centuries, cast a shadow over our Arab and Spanish civilizational content at the same time, and how the translation movement that took place in Andalusia created the Europe that we know today, but at the same time We should not burden Andalusia with what it has no capacity for. There is a great difference today between Arab and Spanish societies, and the presence of the Andalusian complex in Spain or neighboring countries is very limited in light of the difference in temporal contexts.
Although Andalusia provides an important basis for building the fabric of coexistence, I believe that we should not dwell too much on Andalusia because the challenges imposed by contemporary reality are many and require all of us to engage in them and look to the future with an optimistic outlook.
Let us stay a little with Hani Naqshbandi’s novels. You did not translate a single novel of his, but rather you translated more than one novel, including his distinguished novel “Half a Respectable Citizen.” Is this novel another reminder from Naqshbandi to the Arab citizen that he must face his reality instead of immersing himself in the past, because his reality He tells him that he is just “half a citizen.” Is this true?
Yes, it is true. The past sometimes turns into a refuge that avoids confrontation. We use it to evade critical thinking towards questions of the present and the future. The novel “Half a Respectable Citizen” is a very important novel, and it carries within it a very deep message. What is beautiful about Hani’s way of writing, according to what I felt, is that the reader does not feel that the writer is giving him direct messages, but rather the reader infers them from the progression of the novel’s events.
The novel was published at the time of the “Arab Spring”, which is only a coincidence, because Hani worked on it and its details before the events of the “Arab Spring”, and the novel discusses the relationship of the simple individual with power and how power changes the goals and actions of the simple individual, and it is a universal message that is not limited to the Arab citizen but to any person. A citizen interacts with the state and authority, and how authority affects his simple daily life.
The past sometimes turns into a refuge that avoids confrontation. We use it to evade critical thinking towards questions of the present and the future
Especially since the novel entered into the midst of the political challenges that the Arab citizen suffers from, according to Naqshbandi’s perception, as he told us the story of a person whose life developed only because he was seeking to obtain a permit to bury his wife, and then he found himself imprisoned and accused in cases of “destabilizing the regime.”
I translated another novel that follows the same trend, but with other literary tools, which is “The Republic as if” by Alaa Al-Aswany, for which I received the Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding. The first thing that comes to mind is why did you translate this novel? Are we facing another coincidence?
True, the matter also came about by chance, and here I must note something that most of the projects I work on are not chosen by me, but rather are suggested to me by publishing houses. On the other hand, most of what I would like to translate, I find it difficult to find a publishing house to translate, and therefore, translating the novel “The Republic As If” By its owner, Alaa Al-Aswany, it was at the request of a Spanish publishing house. She contacted me and proposed the project to me. We agreed on the details and I began translating it, especially since the novel had previously been translated into many languages, including French and English. The publishing house was also pressuring me to translate it, so we worked on it intensively for a period of time. 4 months with high focus, seven days a week, and after its completion, the Covid-19 pandemic came, delaying its release for a whole year.
In translation, I am interested in entering into the depths of the text, and this is what I do with all the texts that I translate, including the novel “The Republic of As if.” In this way, the translated text turns into a text for the translator. In the case of the novel “The Republic of As If,” because of the fame of its author, a pressure formed on me. There is great tension due to the fact that the novel has many Arab readers, and this is a very bad situation. The translator cannot work under great pressure. However, this situation disintegrated little by little as the days passed, and I worked to deliberately forget the author of the text, the publishing house, and the audience of the novel, which is an obligatory step to enter into... The world of the novel, this entry is what turned the text of the novel into my text, and made the process of translating it into Spanish possible for me.
There are those who believe that the translator builds his own relationship with the characters and the world of the novel, and the novel “The Republic as if” by Alaa Al-Aswany is filled with many characters that explore the depths of Egyptian society and reflect its various segments and characters that may be contradictory. How did you coexist with these characters in order to translate this fine literary work for us? ?
A nice question because it goes directly into the "art of translation", and here I believe that, what matters to me in translation is entering into the depths of the text, which is what I do with all the texts that I translate, including the novel "The Republic of As If", and in this way the translated text turns into a text. For the translator, and in the case of the novel “The Republic of As if,” because of the fame of its author, I created great pressure and tension because of the fact that the novel has many Arab readers, and this is a very bad situation. The translator cannot work under great pressure, but this situation disintegrated little by little as the days passed. I worked on deliberately forgetting the author of the text, the publishing house, and the audience of the novel, which is an obligatory step to enter the world of the novel. This entry is what transformed the text of the novel into my text, and made the process of translating it into Spanish possible for me.
What gave Alaa Al-Aswany’s novel a special aesthetic compared to other texts that I translated is that the novel is rich in beautiful dialogues, and the presence of the dialogues element is important because the dialogues are the reader’s gateway to entering the world of the novel directly. Through the dialogues, the reader can become familiar with the dimensions of the characters. It also helped me to the extent that the characters in the novel She has become a friend of mine, especially since I do not pass judgment on the characters of the text. The translator should not play the role of judge, but rather should try to understand the characters in order to deconstruct the text.
Source: Al Jazeera