Translation as Social and Cultural Practice: The English Translation of Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih and Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

Abstract

This thesis intervenes in current academic debates on the translation of cultural elements from Arabic into English by examining the translation histories of two major Arabic novels that achieved recognition in the Anglophone world. It does so by analysing both the translation process and the ideological positions adopted by translators through a postcolonial lens. The first case study, Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North (1966), translated by Denys Johnson-Davies (1969), is approached through a combined linguistic and postcolonial analysis of its culturally specific features. The second, Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley (1946), is examined through a comparative analysis of its multiple English versions by Trevor LeGassick (1966; 1975) and Humphrey Davies (2011), offering new insights by bringing these versions together for the first time alongside previously unexamined archival material. By integrating textual analysis with archival research, this study highlights how translation strategies are shaped by ideological, cultural, and institutional forces. It explores the impact of factors such as censorship, marketing, and reception, while focusing on author-translator collaboration and retranslation. In doing so, the thesis demonstrates that translation is not merely a linguistic practice but a socially embedded activity, shaped by networks of agents and the historical conditions in which texts are produced, negotiated, and circulated.