The French colonial presence in Lebanon complicates the spelling of names in translation, since a translator is often faced with the dilemma of choosing between 1) a standard transliteration of an Arabic place name; 2) a commonly used French spelling; and 3) a less common English spelling. In some cases, where a Lebanese public figure had a well-established presence on English-language news databases such as Reuters or the New York Times, I used the most commonly-used spelling there.
I have generally not translated the names of city squares and other place names in Beirut, with the exception of the Sahat al-Shohada, which is familiar to visitors under its translated name, “Martyrs’ Square.”
Throughout the text, Ibrahim refers to Lebanon’s state intelligence bureau by its official Arabic name, “al-Maktab al-Thani”, which is itself a translation of the French term “Deuxième Bureau”. To better reflect the French influence on the institutions of the Lebanese state, I have chosen to refer to Lebanon’s espionage office by the French term, “Deuxième Bureau”, rather than the more prosaic “Intelligence Bureau”, or, even worse, “Second Office”, a literal translation that would simply puzzle Anglophone readers.
Occasionally, the Arabic text refers to Yasir Arafat by his informal name of “Abu ‘Ammar”. I have chosen to refer to Arafat by his actual name in my translation. Although “Abu ‘Ammar” will be familiar to Arabic readers, I didn’t want to risk confusing the English-language reader with an unfamiliar name.
Finally, given the specific historic and cultural details in a novel such as this, it was inevitable that I would need to rely on friends and colleagues to help me with particularly difficult references. I would like to thank Salah Chebaro, Ari Hagler, Zaki Haidar, Michel Moushabeck, Nadia Naqib and Alon Tam for their assistance in untangling some knotty words and unusual expressions in the text. As always, I take responsibility for any errors within.
Chip Rossetti