Culture in literary translation between submission and resistance translating Tahar Wattar's cultural connotations in his novel “The Earthquake”

Abstract EN

Algerian literature, as all other literatures in the world, has its own characteristics in expressing cultural and societal values typical to the author's own habitus and which may be deemed difficult to grasp and translate.

For instance in Tahar Wattar's novel “al-Zilzal” (The Earthquake) there are many religious and cultural references that are typical to the Algerian society in terms of use although at the denotational level they seem universal in the Arab culture and even familiar to other cultures if we consider the universal dimension of Islam itself.

This cultural refrences were meant by the auther to demarcate modern Algerian novel and dissociate it from the French language and culture.

Thus, the experience of the translator, especially in literature, is manifold, and the translator has to delve in the spirit of the text rendered by its author culturally specific, and decide on appropriate strategies accordingly.

In this piece of paper, we are trying to shed light on William Granara's translation of al-zilzal in this respect.