The Arabic Translation of Echenoz Novels

Abstract

In 2005, the prestigious Lebanese (Al-Adab) published the Arabic translation of two novels by Jean Echenoz: Les Grandes Blondes (1995) and Je m’en vais (1999). Entrusted to Bassam Hajjar, the translation of these emblematic stories marks the diffusion of Jean Echenoz’s style in the Middle East as a French writing unclassifiable, ironic and polyphonic. On this occasion, we offer a presentation of the receipt of the author's flagship contemporary extreme in the Arab world that first contextualize the work and highlight its international appeal, which will then focus on trio author-translator-reader, and finally explore the translation against the original texts.