MUSA AL-HALOOL

Not even a typo!

Before 2009, it never occurred to me that I would be lucky enough to meet Denys Johnson-Davies, “the leading Arabic-English translator of our time”, to quote

Edward Said. Even the lecture he had given at Aleppo University I missed and thus failed to defend him when he was treated rudely by some self-styled luminaries among my compatriots. I was no less soured by the Arabic translation of his book, Memories in Translation. This horrendous piece of ingratitude on our part moved me to detail in writing our massive debt to Denys. When that article was published by a popular Saudi magazine in 2009, the editors made a dog's dinner of it. Too embarrassed to send Denys a copy of my brutally ravaged piece, I emailed him the original (which I later republished in my book Anguished Arabic).

Delighted with my modest article, he personally nominated me to translate his book Stories from the Life of the Prophet Muhammad for a Dubai publisher.To translate a work by Denys was an honour beyond all imagining. In November 2009, I flew to Cairo to meet him and his wife Paola Crociani. During my week there, I was enveloped in their kindness and singular generosity. Back in Saudi Arabia, I proudly worked for two weeks at my assignment. Once again, Denys was delighted with my work, and he phoned me to tell me just that. A few minutes after we hung up, he called back. “Ya Musa, . . .” He went on to tell me I had put the wrong diacritical mark on a certain verb! While my Saudi editors thought that the 80-plus mistakes they had scattered through my article were not worth fussing about, meticulous Denys at 87 would not tolerate even a typo!

Musa Al-Halool, a Syrian academic and translator, is currently Associate Professor of English & Comparative Literature at Taif University, Saudi Arabia

BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 63