Melanie A. Magidow
Photo by Christopher S Rose
Bio
Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Melanie Magidow began learning Arabic in 2000 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She lived in Morocco on and off for more than a decade, spent one year studying and working in Cairo, and traveled independently in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. She holds a PhD in Arabic Studies from The University of Texas at Austin (2013) and a MA in Near Eastern Studies from New York University (2007). She founded Marhaba Language Expertise in 2017, providing Arabic-to-English translation (both literary and commercial), editing (English), and teaching/consulting in the fields of Arabic language and literature.
As a professional translator, I specialize in communications across linguistic and cultural borders. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and by the time I graduated from high school, I knew that I wanted to study Arabic in order to fill yawning gaps in my knowledge. I was fascinated by the long, documented history of cultures interacting in the Mediterranean region, but I was confused by the inequities that I was already perceiving between North and South, between Europe and Africa, between the West and the East. After many years of traveling, studying, researching, and teaching, I found myself located in Rhode Island due to my husband’s work. I set to finding a way to support my family and continue following my intellectual passions, combining translation activities with editing, teaching, and consulting. In my literary translations, I aim first to entertain and inform the many readers of English who seek access to Arabic literature. By bridging the gap between linguistic communities, I contribute to efforts addressing the inequities that I perceived as a teenager.
The National Endowment for the Arts’ support of my translation of Sirat al-amira Dhat al-Himma (‘The Adventures of Lady Dhat al-Himma’) solidified my future reputation and work. In 2016-2018, the NEA grant allowed me to make serious progress on preparing the text of a book project presenting a selective translation of the lengthy warrior woman adventure epic. As a direct result of the NEA award, several people contacted me, one of them eventually publishing an excerpt of my translation in the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship/Medieval Feminist Forum “Texts and Translations” series. The book project of the first translation of this epic into English is also now under contract with Penguin Classics.
From The Adventures of Lady Dhat al-Himma: Opening Episode of Sīrat al-Amīra by Unknown
[translated from the Arabic]
Translator’s Note: Before she became Lady Dhat al-Himma, she was merely Fatima. And before she became great, she had to endure some of the greatest challenges of her era. As a young girl, she was captured in a raid when the Bani Tayy clan attacked her family's clan, the Bani Kilab. Along with Fatima, they seized her nurse, Suda and Suda's son Marzuq. It happened like this...
One day the men of Bani Tayy rode to the encampment of Bani Kilab and found that all the men were away that day. So the Bani Tayy men seized the women and girls, and everything else, and took them back to their own camp. There they divided the spoils into two groups, agreeing to split their clan into two groups as well. The first group got all the camels and male and female servants, including Fatima. They set out to make their own fortune. The second group got all the free women and girls, and this group remained at the Bani Tayy encampment.
That night the men of Bani Kilab attacked the encampment of Bani Tayy, and a fierce battle ensued that lasted all night. Many women were widowed, but the clan of Bani Kilab recovered its wives and possessions, and returned home in the morning. They ended up with twice as much wealth as they had before Bani Tayy's attack. Fatima's mother mourned the loss of her daughter, but her father was relieved to be rid of the burden that a daughter presents to a father who worries about the honor of his reputation and that of his people.
Fatima, Suda, and Suda's son Marzuq traveled with the Bani Tayy group that had claimed the camels and servants. The Bani Tayy had assumed that Fatima was Suda's daughter. They asked Suda, "What is your daughter's name? She does not look like you."
To protect Fatima, Suda lied, "She is my daughter, but her name isn't very easy for you to say. Why don't you name her whatever you wish."
"We'll call her Shariha."
"As you wish," said Suda. "We are in your service."
At this Fatima lost her patience: "Stop talking like that! Or, by the pride of the great Arabs, and the truth of the Raiser of the Dead, I'll kill myself. For I am no servant girl or slave, and will not have a servant getting me into trouble." She covered her face with a veil, which was not customary for servants. Even the sun could not see her face. "I will serve no one but the Creator! Surely our people will rescue us from this misfortune, and crush the Bani Tayy!" Weeping, she switched to poetry:
You'll learn, unjust people of the Arabs–
If we don't strike them with a spear
Then we'll lose our rights!
If they don't bring us our mounts, tall and free,
By the Prophet, the Chosen One,
The best of people, a great mercy,
If they don't return us to our people,
Gracious and proper, the act of real nobility,
Then they'll see what our people are made of–
They'll teach them a lesson, or two or three!
For fate cannot dictate
Victory for the unjust, you see.
When the Bani Tayy heard her poetry, they said, "By the pride of the Arabs, what a brave and heroic Arab girl!"
About the Epic
This epic was likely first composed in oral tradition in northern Syria in the early 12th century. The earliest extant handwritten manuscript is dated 1430. In 1909, a man named Ali al-Maqanibi supposedly issued the definitive printed edition in Cairo. It was reprinted in Beirut by the publishing house Al-Maktaba Al-Sha‘biyya (since closed) beginning in 1980. In the beginning of this edition (both Cairo and Beirut printings) is the following attribution: “The one[s] who narrated this amazing epic, and the strange, outlandish events it contains, [are] ‘Ali ibn Musa al-Maqanibi, Al-Mahzab ibn Bakr al-Mazini, Salih al-Ja‘fari, Yazid ibn ‘Ammar al-Muzani, ‘Abdullah ibn Wahb al-Yamani, ‘Awf ibn Fahd al-Fazari, Sa‘d ibn Malik al-Tamimi, Ahmad al-Shimshati, Sabir al-Mara‘ashi, and Najd ibn Hisham al-‘Amiri.” To this day, not a single one of these ten men has been verified in biographical literature.