Am I experiencing an epiphany?
Forget Emma. I’m going to translate my Marguerite. Memoirs of Hadrian, my favorite novel. Marie-Thérèse may have wanted Vronsky for a husband, but I wanted Hadrian. I wanted someone to erect monuments in my memory, build statues. I wanted someone to dedicate cities in my name.
Where is my Aaliyopolis?
Hadrian or Emma, Emma or Hadrian, a French housewife or a Roman Caesar? Choices, limitless choices — well, almost limitless.
If I translate Yourcenar, I can be my own Hadrian. I can build my own city. I can be emperor for a year, ruler of the universe, arbiter of life and death. Call me Emperor Speck.
But I would love to translate Coetzee and his impeccable prose, shorn of all excess. I’ll do Waiting for the Barbarians. After all, I’m no longer a feet-washing virgin. The book is magnificent, a perfect jewel.
I can try to capture Coetzee’s lapidary English in Arabic. Can I discover how to convey his precision and incisiveness? Or Yourcenar’s French, which she tamed, making it sound more Latin, as if Hadrian’s old, shaky hand wrote it with a quill? I don’t know if I can share her expansive formality of language or Coetzee’s beguiling subtleties, though I am a better translator than when I began fifty years ago. I can try.
Should I be Hadrian or the Magistrate?
I’ll use waterproof ink — permanent, nonfugitive ink.
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
I hear Marie-Thérèse coming up the stairs — time for lunch with the witches. She promised to stop at my door.
Should I translate Yourcenar or Coetzee?
Marie-Thérèse reaches my landing. If she rings my doorbell, my next project will be Hadrian, if she knocks, then it’s Barbarians.
I take a long breath, the air of anticipation.
Acknowledgments
Thank you:
Reading and editing: Asa DeMatteo, William Zimmerman, Madeleine Thien, Joy Johannessen, and Elisabeth Schmitz.
Generosity and a great place to write: Beatrice Monti della Corte and the staff of the Santa Maddalena Foundation.
Inestimable faith and support: Nicole Aragi, Christie Hauser, Duvall Osteen, Amy Tan, Colm Tóibín, Silvia Querini, John Freeman, Tony Chakar, Andrea Laguni, Teri Boyd, Sasha Hemon.
Translation of Antara’s poem: Fady Joudah.
Randa, Rania, and Raya, of course.
Thank you.