Translating the Dead

“Translating the Dead” is the name of a panel I attended at the #AWP26 conference and book fair last week.[1] The very fact that this was on the agenda speaks to a greater intentionality and thoughtfulness going into translations today. In prior times, living authors had little recourse to correct the record, and now, of course, dead authors cannot state their case. Today’s sensitivity about translations is a far cry from the turn-of-the-century standards that turned Memoirs of an Arabian Princess into a no-name, rushed 1888 English translation and a completely distorted 1907 English translation, not to mention other translations that have censored, abridged, or otherwise deviated from the original.

The AWP panelists were more caught up in translating poetry than prose – fewer words make for greater challenges – but it was still an interesting presentation. A number of their comments got me thinking:

Translating the dead is not just translating the text, but also translating the death itself, along with the culture, time, and place that went with it.

Yes. I call myself a translator, but I talk about transmitting Sayyida Salme’s life and writings – the two cannot be separated. Her writings are necessarily contextual, as all writings are, but here they arise from a context that is as foreign to us as the original language may be. We do her an injustice to read her writing in a vacuum, divorced from her lived experience.[2] We also risk missing much of the meaning – both her intended meaning and our interpretive meaning – if we do not make the extra effort to understand her in situ. I therefore tried to translate contextually, and I offer readers supplemental footnotes, images, and short essays – all (ideally) without distracting from her own words. My focus is always on her words, but within a widened aperture. Hopefully readers will also bring their own curiosity and learnings to what my series offers.

Translating the dead is an act of translation and restoration.

Indeed, that has been my main purpose – to use my translations to restore (I say rescue) her voice. That puts a heightened premium first and foremost on accuracy, but it also demands a certain humility. I can “restore,” but do not want to replace. My translations are not her voice – they are amplifying renditions, at one remove from the original. This also requires transparency. I am as committed to textual fidelity as I am to my translator identity. Compare that to most of the English reprints of the Memoirs that give no indication whatsoever that the reader has a translation in their hands.

Translators should not make the text clearer to modern readers than to original readers.

Sounds right, as part of staying true to her writing. We cannot know how much Sayyida Salme’s immediate audience understood her meaning, but I have often thought we can understand her better than her contemporaries. She was ahead of her time, and much of what she said back then resonates more fully now, like her scathing comments about war and likening military draft to slavery, or her holistic concern for society when transitioning from slavery, or her discomfort with the surveillance state. We have seen more of the impacts and perhaps found more of the lessons learned. That said, I make no pretense of knowing what she actually meant, so I have at times opted for ambiguity above clarity. I have translated what she wrote, to the best of my ability; I show you where anything deviates (like adding paragraph breaks); and I drop an explanatory footnote wherever my word choice had to take sides (like did she mean wife or woman when she wrote Frau?).

Translations of the dead are a bridge between looking back and looking forward.

Absolutely. I have found this whole exercise to be a form of bridge-making. It has been fun to place myself – pivot myself – as a voice between those who came before me and those who come after. As I project her voice horizontally across the world, I also launch it vertically into the future, just as she did. One hundred years from now there may be another reader/listener in another setting who will reinterpret her voice (potentially through my voice) into their voice. Like a repeater effect, they will match her words to a new (hopefully more enlightened) context, across other historical lessons learned, for greater meaning in the moment – both translated words and translated meanings. My discussion guide has an Activity Page titled “Connecting to the Past – Speaking Your Voice to the Future,"[3] so this is an exercise for all. Give it a try!

The translator’s role is not fixed in the author’s intention.

No, sorry, on this point I disagree. Quoting Roland Barthes, one AWP panelist suggested that meaning comes together in the reader, not the writer, thereby justifying “porous boundaries” between the original work and the translator’s rendition. But no – unless this is a collaborative work, something the dead do not afford us, I believe this aggrandizes the translator. Nothing in giving full weight to a reader’s interpretation endows a license to treat the translation as a separate original without responsibility to the originating source. That is no longer a translation, but a transposition.[4]

At least for my purposes, vis-à-vis Sayyida Salme, I am not here to reinterpret, but to reinforce. What I translate is meant to capture her meaning, which necessarily includes her intentions. We are fortunate that Sayyida Salme shared her main intentions in the Memoirs Preface and Afterword,[5] and throughout her text, including confessions to her counterpart in the Letters. I have too much respect for Sayyida Salme, and the amazing gift of the texts she left us, to adulterate her voice.

***

With thanks to the AWP for an excellent session, here are points I would have made, had I been invited to join the panel:

·        In translating the dead, we must respect not only the original text, but also the dead.

·        Translation is a form of direct communication, not an exercise in speculation.

·        A text in the public domain does not mean a free-for-all in the name of the author.

·        Translators that reach across time act on their own recognizance and conscience.

·        If the original is history, translation is legacy – with responsibility.[6]

It is probably good that I embarked on my translations as a way to get to know my great-great-grandmother[7] – as a connection, not a production. That let me look to her, rather than write for the market or anything else, much as she wrote her truth, not what people might have wanted to read.

Ultimately, I hope my translations ferry her spirit, where I am just the wind under her wings.

Let history surprise you, let her story inspire you – let her authentic voice speak to you.

Andrea Emily Stumpf, March 9, 2026

Photo credit:  Andrea E. Stumpf, Friedhof Ohlsdorf in Hamburg, May 26, 2025.

[1] The annual gathering of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs: #AWP26 (March 4-7, 2026). Speakers for "Translating the Dead" were Diana Arterian (moderator), Aaron Coleman, C. Francis Fisher, Chloe Garcia Roberts, and Umair Kazi.

[2] That includes one-dimensional accusations of racism without acknowledging the embedded racism of her hierarchical upbringing and the prevalent racism of her time, along with the racism exercised upon her.

[3] Sayyida Salme/Emily Ruete: Discussion Guide for Her Life and Writings – For the three-book series Memoirs of an Arabian Princess, Letters to the Homeland, and The Centennial Collection, p. 49 (2025).

[4] Recognizing translators as authors and creators of their own work is not mutually exclusive from recognizing a translator’s responsibility to the author’s original work - if it is to be called a translation. As such, I believe the relatively recent PEN manifesto falls short when it outlines translator responsibilities, by failing to mention the need to at least seek to convey the author’s original meaning. 2023 Manifesto on Literary Translation by PEN America.

[5] Considered at a high level, her original intention to write is in her Preface: “Nine years ago, I was inspired to recount some of my experiences for my children, who otherwise knew nothing about my past, except that I was Arab and came from Zanzibar. Physically and emotionally spent, I did not expect to last long enough to see them into adulthood to then tell them about my fateful journey and childhood memories. I therefore decided to write up my experiences and undertook the project with great love and dedication, knowing it was for my dear children, whose tenderness had comforted me during long and troubled years and whose deep empathy has sustained me through my trying times.”  (Memoirs, p. 1) Her later intention to publish is more clearly stated in her Afterword: “Even in this century of railroads and rapid communication, so much ignorance still exists among European nations of the customs and institutions of their own immediate neighbors, that one can hardly wonder how little is actually known about those of races far removed. … Having been born and bred in the East, I am in a position to set down the unvarnished reflection of my Oriental experiences—of its high life and its low life—to speak of many peculiarities, and lift the veil from things that are always hidden from profane eyes. This, I hope, will constitute the main value of my book, and my object will have been fully gained if I have been able to contribute my share, and above all, if I have succeeded in removing many misconceptions and distortions current about the East.” (Memoirs, p. 229)

[6] See my previous blog post on History and Legacy (July 24, 2025).

[7] Only when I realized how poor the historical translations were, did I decide to publish. (Memoirs, p. 252)