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Translation and Affect in Rachid Boudjedra’s La Prise de Gibraltar

2018; Routledge; Volume: 22; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17409292.2018.1494261

1740-9306

Edwige Tamalet Talbayev,

Islamic Studies and History

Rachid Boudjedra’s novel La Prise de Gibraltar stages a post-traumatic engagement with history, which hinges on the repudiation of the myth of the Arab conquest of Spain, the “phantasme central” undermining Algeria’s present. The repressed traumatic experiences suffered by the main protagonist, Tarik, generate aesthetic, affective, and psychological après-coups.1 Reverberating with the rippling effects of trauma, this apprehension of reality focuses on moments of feeling physically manifested through sensory misperceptions and medical afflictions. This article reflects on the affective forms of counter-historical writing staged in the novel—particularly in relation to the trope of translation. Building on Emily Apter’s ascription that misperformed translations beget war-like circumstances, I explore the correlation between the novel’s martial ethos and the failed tactics of literal translation (mot à mot) favored by Tarik’s father. In contrast, Tarik’s subversive linguistic transpositions dismantle any cohesive concept of historical origin and purvey their own distinct model of cultural self-definition. Tarik’s translations thus reveal the intractable part of illegibility intrinsic to the novel’s coexisting narratives—a residual kernel of opacity purveyor of historical agency for the post-traumatic subject.