Jeanette Atiya hails a bibliography of Arabic literature translated into English that will serve as an indispensable guide to both the general reader and the specialist Salih Altoma, Modern Arabic Literature in Translation. London: Saqi, 2005, 166 pages Salih Altoma's book is a feat of literary scholarship: it not only includes a comprehensive bibliography of modern Arabic literature in English translation but serves as an indispensable guide to translations into English of fiction, poetry, and drama published between 1947 and 2003. This bibliographic scholarly work is, as Altoma himself points out, "the outcome of several years of teaching and research in the field of modern Arabic literature". In collecting the data presented in the various chapters Altoma relied on several American and European library sources or bibliographies: Index Islamicus, the Library of Congress, World Cat/OCLC (On Line Computer Library Centre), RL1N (Research Libraries Information Network), MLA (Modern Language Association, PIC (Periodicals Contents Index) and UNESCO's Index Translationum Database. The bibliographic information contained in the book is comprehensive in the sense that it includes translations published not only in English-speaking countries (the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and India) but also in Arab Countries. From the 1920s Arab translators and institutions have been actively executing a large number of translation projects. "Arab writers and scholars have felt that their literature was ignored... or marginalized in the West," Altoma writes in his introduction, and the objective behind these projects has been to "promote a better understanding" of their cultural heritage. In his introduction Altoma delimits the scope and coverage of the bibliography, stating that the book "focuses on English and the Anglo-American world". "No attempt," he writes, ""s made to discuss the translation of Arabic literature into other European languages". The bibliography covers only translations published as books, with translated works published in journals and newspapers or on the Internet generally excluded. "Such translations are too many to be listed in one volume, and their sources, with the exception of the internet, are not easily accessible," Altoma explains in his introduction. The guide does not include works written originally in English, or translated into English from other languages even if they later appeared in Arabic. The bibliography begins with the year 1947, prior to which year only a few isolated works were translated into English -- perhaps no more than five volumes, two by Taha Husayn, one by Ahmed Shawqi, one by Mahmud Kamil and one by Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi. The book is divided into six chapters. The first deals with "Najib Mahfouz: His place in American Publications", with the following five chapters each dealing with a different literary genre -- fiction, poetry and drama respectively. Two chapters are dedicated to poetry; chapters four tackles poetry in Arabic anthologies; chapter five in international anthologies. Altoma devotes the whole of the first chapter to Mahfouz since "he is rightly credited with the primary role in developing the novel in Arabic as a new genre in a relatively short period..." Mahfouz, moreover, "managed to emulate many of the western fictional techniques, styles and trends, and to create in the process a distinctly Arabic narrative art". An account of Mahfouz is bound to provide an illustration of the issues and obstacles that are relevant to the translation of modern Arabic literature in general, including the role of publishers, the negative attitude still prevalent in the Western countries and the difficulties attributed to the Arabic language, and so he marks an obvious entry point into any guide to translations from Arabic. This first chapter, like those following, is divided into two major parts: a bird's eye view of critics' opinions followed by a bibliography. The bibliography is also divided into two parts: before and after 1988, the year Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize. This division is due to the fact that "no major commercial publisher embarked on publishing Mahfouz until after he was awarded the Nobel Prize". This is obvious from Part I of the bibliography. Both parts I and II of the bibliography are divided into the same sub-sections: translations, book reviews and selected studies, interviews and related items. While, as Altoma writes, "many critics have contributed to the growth of interest in Mahfouz," special reference should be made to Roger Allen and Trevor LeGassick for "their pioneering and continued work in the form of both translations and literary studies". Mention should also be made of the 16- year campaign of the AUC Press "to get the genius of Egypt's great novelist acknowledged in the West". Chapters two and three are dedicated to Arabic fiction. Chapter two provides an overview of Arabic fiction in translation between 1947-2003, while chapter three comprises bibliographic information on the works of fiction -- both novels and anthologies of short stories - translated during this period. Reviewing English translations of contemporary Arabic fiction Altoma outlines the growing interest in three phases: 1947-1967, 1968-1988, and 1988-onwards. In the first phase Western readers showed little interest in Arabic fiction because the novel and the short story had only begun to evolve as a genre in the mid-nineteenth century. During the second phase not only did a greater number of works of fiction appear in English translation but an increasing number of academic studies led to a greater appreciation of Arabic fiction. The third phase, which Altoma calls the "Post-Nobel phase", manifests the frequency with which Arabic works of fiction were translated and reprinted in response to demand. Major commercial publishers and university presses became involved in the publishing and marketing of contemporary Arabic works, with mainstream journals also instrumental in expanding the readership of Arabic literature, publishing reviews of Arabic works in English translation on a regular basis. In his overview Altoma comments on the predominance of Egyptian authors, evidenced by the fact that out of the 322 titles listed in the bibliography 170 are works by Egyptians. Altoma also mentions that the second phase saw a huge growth in the translation of works by women writers. Chapter three includes only the bibliographic information relevant to chapter two. It comprises a chronological bibliography with translated works listed according to the year of publication and in alphabetical order. Flicking through the pages we find a maximum of between one or two translated works each year in the forties, fifties and sixties as compared to an average of 15 in the eighties and nineties. This is followed by a short bibliographic list of "Arabic works in international anthologies" and then the authors' index. Next to the name of each author is the number of the entry or entries for his/her work in the chronological bibliography. The women novelists follow in a separate list, then the translators' index, the titles' index, the publishers' index, and last of all, a country index. Chapters four and five deal with Arabic poetry in translation. Chapter four tackles Arabic poetry in pan-Arab and selected regional anthologies, chapter five translated Arabic poems in international anthologies. Each of these chapters comprises two sections, the first providing an overview of the most prominent anthologies within the category mentioned in the title, the second a bibliography of the anthologies relevant to the overview. After making a survey of several selected anthologies, Altoma concludes chapter four with the observation that that "although an extensive corpus of contemporary Arabic poetry has become accessible in English translation in numerous anthologies, there are many poets that have been left out completely". He adds that there "is still a major gap in the corpus of translated poetry". This gap is particularly evident in relation to the poetry of North African countries like Algeria and Morocco. It is also apparent in the absence of individual collections of major modern poets like Amal Dunqul and Abdel-Mu'ti Hijazi (Egypt). The bibliography that follows falls into three categories: pan-Arab anthologies, selected regional anthologies and selected anthologies of poets. After surveying the prominent international anthologies, in chapter five Altoma expresses his disappointment at the omission of Arabic poetry from some of these: "To overlook Arabic and the Arab world is most perplexing as Arabic is a major world language and heir to one of the longest continuous literary traditions". In the bibliography that follows, the entries that include selections from the works of modern Arab poets are marked by an asterisk. Altoma notes the number of asterisks "provides ample proof of the greater visibility and representation Arab poetry has gained in recent years". The final chapter deals with drama and, like previous chapters, it too falls into two parts: the first gives an overview of the history of the genre in Arabic, together with the proportion of translated works while the second provides bibliographic information. "Arabic drama," says Altoma in the overview, "is the least represented in English translation of all literary forms." This is due to the fact that it is a relatively recent genre not backed by a "developed dramatic tradition in Arabic". It also faced more obstacles than any of the other genres of which the most conspicuous are "the repressive political climate" which restricts the playwright's freedom, and the linguistic dichotomy between the classical language and the spoken variants of Arabic labeled as "colloquial dialects". The linguistic dichotomy presents translators with a difficult task which "demands competence not only in the standard classical language but also in one or two more of its spoken variants". Altoma concludes his rather brief survey of Arabic drama by saying "modest progress has been made in recent years towards promoting the English translation of Arabic drama," adding that "apart from the fact that a limited number of plays have been translated, the translated texts have had, thus far, a marginal appeal beyond a narrow, largely Arabist, audience". The bibliography that follows this survey of Arabic drama falls under three headings: anthologies and collected works, individual works and further reading. Under this last heading are listed critical studies of different aspects of Arabic drama. Altoma concludes his book with an appendix comprising a bibliography of literary autobiographies and memoirs followed by a list of selected interviews and ending in a list of studies. Modern Arabic literature in Translation is a pioneering work. Prior to its appearance only partial bibliographies on the subject existed. It is trailblazing, too, by virtue of its comprehensiveness and fastidious organisation. The massive effort which has obviously gone into it will make it of benefit to multitudes of readers. It will be a great aid to those seeking to expand their knowledge of Arabic literature and culture and could be instrumental in expanding the readership of Arabic literature in translation. It will also be of immense value to teachers and graduate researchers who are interested in literary translation or comparative literature, also providing an indispensable aid to translators seeking a source text which has yet to be translated, or who are trying to improve on translations already available.
