Exile’s Cacophony
Rana Mohamed Hassan, Tuesday 4 Aug 2026 Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, Al-Turjuman (The Interpreter), Kolkata: Penprints, 2026, pp. 256 Can language ever become a home? Can translation preserve not only words but also memories, identities and the fragile connections people carry across borders? Such are the questions at the heart of The Interpreter, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid’s fourth novel, recently translated from Arabic into English and published in India. While the title immediately points to the profession of translation, the novel gradually reveals itself to be about something far more profound: the countless ways people attempt to translate themselves while living between cultures, languages, and homelands. Aboul-Yazid, known as a poet, novelist, translator, journalist and traveller, has long viewed translation as an act of cultural dialogue rather than a purely linguistic exercise. That conviction shapes every page of The Interpreter, a novel that transforms the translator from an inv...
