The Use of Translator’s Notes in Four Translations of Naguib Mahfuz’s “Miramar”

Abstract

Naguib Mahfuz’s novel “Miramar” (1967) portrays urban Egyptian society after the 1952 Revolution and is full of social, political, and cultural references. This type of information can lead to translation problems that may or may not be solved using translator’s notes. Analysing four translations of the novel, to English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese, it is possible to notice that the translational choices vary significantly, revealing much about each translator, the literary system they are part of, and their relationship with Egypt. In order to investigate the use of translator’s notes in each translation, we use theoretical discussions such as those by María Luisa Donaire Fernández (1991) e Pascale Sardin (2007). I conclude that the English language translation avoids the break of linearity from the main text, being the only translation to not use any form of paratext. In the other three translations, paratexts are used, be they a prologue as in the Spanish edition, which makes some of the translator’s notes unnecessary, or a more frequent use of translator’s notes, as in the two Portuguese language translations. Such notes, most often, fulfill an exegetic function, sometimes also adding interpretative information. In none of the studied cases strategies of explicitation of the translator as author, such as metalinguistic observations, were used. Based on those conclusions and comparing them to the observation of the editorial markets in each of the involved countries, I raise hypotheses about which translation practices are more easily accepted in each culture.