Yasmine Seale Lecture

 Alexander Pfau


Yasmine Seale's talk was something special. As a translator of the 1001 Nights, especially a female one, you are going to be under immense scrutiny, and to perform a translation as well thought out as the one she did was truly remarkable. What interested me most was the fact that, despite the translation's feminist tendencies, she didn't come into the project with an innately feminist stance, rather, the text itself is one revolving around the themes of female power in the face of a gruesome man. She mentioned Arabic as the "Love of her life", which I thought was awesome, since Arabic is one of the hardest languages in the world. I do wonder how similar it is to other old languages, or whether or not Arabic has changed throughout the ages.


I think one of the most important parts of the Seale translations was that is was all there. Not in the literal sense, the text is of course complete in the English language, rather she takes everything in the 1001 Nights, and puts it into her own translation. She often says that other translators are big "erasers", meaning they don't take the entirety of the text, and instead cut it down to their own liking. In doing so, her text becomes much more rooted in feminism, as much of the story revolves around a woman controlling a man. Once again, Seale gave us a wonderful talk, which was a joy to attend.

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