Translation, Retranslation and Recreation in the Literary Field

Ameen Fares Rihani rewrote a few of his Arabic poems, such as “I am the East” and “New York” in English, to enable American and Arab readers to understand the poems within their cultural settings, to promote the Eastern culture in the West, and to introduce the West to the Easterners. This paper argues that in his translations of his own poetry, Rihani was a recreator rather than a translator. A comparative analysis of Rihani’s rewritten poems in English and the translations made by other translators of the same poems will prove that the author-translator’s choice of terms along with their cultural backgrounds, deep meanings and etymologies reveal his deep understanding of the source and target cultures, the Eastern and the Western ones. The study further analyzes Rihani’s literary recreations or in other terms transcreations and examines as well the other translators’ rendering of the same works. Comparative study shows how poetry transcends cultural barriers and understands the linguistic and cultural spirit of the target language, thereby attempts to bridge the civilization and cultural gaps between the East and the West.