Amended Manuscript : The Translator's Ideology and Socio-Cultural Factors in the Translations of Taha Hussein's The Days- A passage to France and The Fulfilled Promise

The aim of the present paper is to compare the translations of the third volume of The Days – A Passage To France (1976) by Kenneth Cragg, and The Fulfilled Promise (2016) by Mohammed Enani to reveal the effect of each translator's ideology and sociocultural background on his view of Taha Hussein's work and his choice of translation strategies. The choice of the two translations stems from the fact that the two translators represent different ideologies. The comparison of the two translations is done in the light of Lefevere's concept of “Rewriting” and its influential elements that include poetics, ideology as well as the universe of discourse. The compasrison relies also on Venuti's strategies of domestication/foreignization as well as Toury's norms theory. Analyzing the formal elements, stylistic devices and cultural elements in the two translations, the paper contends that every translator rewrites the S.T. according to his ideology and sociocultural background. The study concludes that since Cragg belongs to a Western sociocultural background and ideology, he is not as keen as Enani to preserve the Arabic language poetics or Arab culture . This is shown by his misunderstanding of meaning and vocalization as well as disregard of the salient features of Taha Hussein’s literary style. It also finds out that since Enani is a professional Arab translator, he not only accounts for most cultural specific references in the S.T., but he also gives due attention to maintaining the distinctive features of Taha Hussein’s literary style .