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

Anglophones who would read the translation resemble the author's
audiences in some respects and differ greatly in others. Like Morocco, the United
States was once a colony and fought for independence. Though this historical
memory is much more recent and therefore more emotive for the author's
Moroccan readers than for most Anglophones, for members of some groups in
American society such as African- and Native-American communities, historical
memories of oppression may remain vivid. Like Moroccan women, American
women have had to fight for social and economic equality and the right to
contribute to social planning and development, though in these areas the U.S.
Constitution advocates for American women, while family law and traditional
interpretations of religious discourse work against Moroccan women.
Anglophone readers more closely resemble the author's secondary
audience--non-Arab francophones--in that they would experience the culture of
the narrative as foreign rather than native. Though America was once colonized
by a foreign power, Americans now recognize their nation to be a global power.
In this respect, the American readership resembles the author's French readers
who acknowledge having been a colonial power. However Anglophone nations
are historically less involved with and geographically more distant from the
context of the narrative than are the author's intended French readers. France
participated directly in Moroccan history as the colonial power for the first half of
the twentieth century whereas the Anglophone Allies entered Moroccan history
only briefly during W.W.II. Many French people have traveled the short distance
across the Mediterranean Sea to visit, work, or live in Morocco, but relatively few
Anglophones alive today have been to Morocco. Notwithstanding the differences
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