Iraqi women (re)writing their stories: An overview of short stories and novels by Iraqi women in English translation

Abstract

Since the 1970s, Iraqi women writers have engaged with translation as part of their creative expression and literary activism. Until recently, little has been written on how stories by Iraqi women writers have been mediated in English translation. This gap is surprising in view of Iraq’s high international profile for decades. In this article, I revisit the times and places in which Iraqi women stories – and their politics of counter-hegemonic solidarity – have been mediated into Arabic–English translation using analytical frameworks of feminist translation that focus on paratexts and paratranslation. In doing so, I hope to add to the growing scholarship on Iraqi women’s writing, with a focus on how Iraqi women’s stories are presented in translation. By exploring the ways by which Iraqi women’s stories have emerged in Arabic and English, I draw attention to how Iraqi women writers do tribute to the lives of Iraqi women, men and children in past and recent contexts of publication.