While I share Al Ghitany’s frustration with voyeurism and sensationalism, and with the generally quite superficial and misinformed Western coverage of Arab culture, I’ve actually heard some pretty good things about “Banaat Riyadh.” No one says it’s a masterpiece, but three women friends whose taste in books I trust have told me they greatly enjoyed it. I haven’t read it yet (it’s part of a big pile of books on my shelf that I often eye with guilt) but based on what I’ve read about it, it sounds like the author exploits the desire to see into the life of women in Saudi Arabia in conscious, funny and perhaps subversive ways. And she seems to use different dialects, registers, and languages to great effect.
Anyway, this column reminded me of the controversy that has surrounded Marilyn Booth’s translation of “Banaat Riyadh” into English. Booth has written at length about the ways the author and publisher changed her translation without consulting her. She gives many examples in this article in Translation Studies (unfortunately not free to the public) of the kinds of changes that were made. I have to say that based on the examples she gives it certainly looks as if the changes flattened the narrative voice she’d created into something more formal and less charming.