Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

and expressions. In the following sentence, for example, the author italicizes the
phrase Saad Dabouh but does not attempt to fully explain this allusion to a
cultural element foreign to French readers.
Elle eut un élan de sollicitude pour cet homme, son mari, si peureux, si
frileux, qui était sorti affronter la mort, sinon la prison et la torture, dans
cette nuit glaciale de Saad Dabouh. (110)
She felt a rush of concern for this man, her husband, so timid, so sensitive
to the cold, who had gone out to face death, if not prison and torture in this
glacial night of Saad Dabouh.
Most who speak Moroccan Arabic would understand this phrase which means
"the butcher's good luck" and refers to the coldest days and nights of the winter
when raw meat kept longest before the use of artificial refrigeration. This phrase
also conjures memories of biting cold winter nights in the old city of Fez for those
who have lived there, and strikes a spark of dark humor: "we are freezing to
death, but at least the butcher is happy." This transcribed expression inserts
cultural elements without explanation, calling attention to the gap between
cultures, but giving enough information to partially compensate for this gap.
Without knowing this phrase, French readers understand that Kenza is concerned
about her husband being exposed to the "glacial" cold, though they may sense
they have lost some of the cultural meaning of the allusion.
La Baroudeuse uses a multiplicity of linguistic and cultural registers to
make heard voices that have been silenced. The tone varies between lyrical and
harshly graphic and contains rhetorical and journalistic as well narrative and
descriptive passages. The following passage, for example, animates nature in lyric
terms.
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