Mehrez, Samia, ed. (2012): Translating Egypt’s Revolution: the Language of Tahrir. Cairo/New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 340 p.

Samia Mehrez and her contributors – all of whom were her students – offer an early specimen of what might be called ‘post-revolutionary lettering,’ insofar as ‘lettering’ can be understood as heterogeneous (re)writings – in different shapes and colours – of the very letters themselves. By analogy, one event – Egypt’s Revolution – has been carved into disparate shapes with distinct ideological shades and political agendas, from sarcastic literary maneuvers to solemnity and everything in between. The idea of lettering links particularly well to the diverse translation movements activated during Egypt’s 2011 Revolution(s). In a sense, this coterie of academics displays a kind of ‘collective memory’ that disseminates not only the linguistic, but also the cultural and ideological idiosyncrasies punctuating any translator’s mission. True, much has been written about the spell that Egypt’s uprising (inspired by Tunisia’s) has cast over other countries, but what this book adds to the plethora of writings is the personification of translators as ‘activists’ – among many – marshaling captions and slogans on social media, placards, and TV broadcasts so that the Other could tag along as events unfold through their lenses. Furthermore, the work constitutes an interesting corpus of objects/targets of translation (street statues, masks, graffiti, etc.) found on Egypt’s streets which informed the contributors’ different translations as they occurred in the streets. The eight chapters featured in this book, together with the editor’s introduction (Translating the Revolution: An Open Text), cover a rich array of topics that historicize the event. From the birth of a revolution to its translation, passing by its visual, poetic, and humorous interpretations, the presented articles constitute a “reenactment of the new ‘infectious urgency’ of the revolutionary spirit in Egypt today” (p. 4). Innovatively, in an attempt to construe the revolution in relation to the many parameters that nourish it, Mehrez borrows Clifford Geertz’s (1973) ethnographic formulation of ‘thick description’ to obtain ‘thick translations’ (p. 12) in which a dialectical relationship imposes itself between the source text (ST) and a constellation of other political, economic, social and religious texts. Actually, the fact of covering all these aspects in translation bypasses the ‘loss and gain’ and/or ‘fidelity and betrayal’ dichotomies to focus on the translator as creator, producing strong affects that can, or so it is hoped, actuate unflinching mind-sets. Thus, it is under the banner of translation as a proactive agent of change that this work subscribes. Although she makes no direct reference to Bourdieu, Mehrez’s use of the word ‘histories’ maps into Bourdieu’s denotative frame when she writes: “the participants also came to the task of translation with their own histories” (p. 3). She arguably draws on Bourdieu’s notion of history as “[an] embodied […] second nature” (Bourdieu 1990: 56) resulting in what he dubbed habitus. This one could spring from a set of practices recognized for a certain social group. A telling instance could be Egypt’s age-long celebrations of “a popular form of carnivalesque festivities” (p. 30) linking to the birthdays (mulids) of prominent religious figures. Accordingly, the first chapter Mulid al-Tahrir: Semiotics of a Revolution passes on review the collective appropriation of Midan-al-TaHrir (TaHrir Square) as a space for popular and spiritual celebrations (mulids) that are reflected in the different decorations embellishing it but, most importantly, in the get-together of wholehearted people all willing to witness the birth of a long-expected democracy. The third chapter Signs and Signifiers: Visual Translations of Revolt explores the role of visual public signs (panels, placards, memorials, masks) in drawing from people’s collective memory and awakening their consciousness. In fact, the sum of …