Reframing Palestine: "Mornings in Jenin or David’s Scar?" A Narrative Account of the Persian Translation of Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin

Abstract

This article, with narrative theory mainly of Baker applied, explores how the translation of Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin in Persian reframes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict narrated by a Palestinian-American author. The hyphenated narrative position of the author provides her with more than the narratives of a monolithic ‘self’ and makes her challenge some of them. The language (English) she has chosen to narrate in also reveals the global audience her narrative is targeted at. However, the translator doesn’t seem to associate her translation with such a narrative position of the author on the issue of self/other. The narrative aimed to be disseminated globally is funneled to be targeted at a domestic Persian audience, a process through which the translated text solidifies the wall between the ‘self’ (seeming to be the same ‘self’ of both the Middle East author and the translator) and the ‘other’ (the west).