Where is my Aaliyopolis?
Hadrian or Emma, Emma or Hadrian, a French housewife or a Roman Caesar? Choices, limitless choices—well, almost limitless.
If I translate Yourcenar, I can be my own Hadrian. I can build my own city. I can be emperor for a year, ruler of the universe, arbiter of life and death. Call me Emperor Speck.
But I would love to translate Coetzee and his impeccable prose, shorn of all excess. I’ll do Waiting for the Barbarians. After all, I’m no longer a feet-washing virgin. The book is magnificent, a perfect jewel.
I can try to capture Coetzee’s lapidary English in Arabic. Can I discover how to convey his precision and incisiveness? Or Yourcenar’s French, which she tamed, making it sound more Latin, as if Hadrian’s old, shaky hand wrote it with a quill? I don’t know if I can share her expansive formality of language or Coetzee’s beguiling subtleties, though I am a better translator than when I began fifty years ago. I can try.
Should I be Hadrian or the Magistrate?
I’ll use waterproof ink—permanent, nonfugitive ink.
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
I hear Marie-Thérèse coming up the stairs—time for lunch with the witches. She promised to stop at my door.
Should I translate Yourcenar or Coetzee?
Marie-Thérèse reaches my landing. If she rings my doorbell, my next project will be Hadrian, if she knocks, then it’s Barbarians.
I take a long breath, the air of anticipation.
Acknowledgments
Thank you:
Reading and editing: Asa DeMatteo, William Zimmerman, Madeleine Thien, Joy Johannessen, and Elisabeth Schmitz.
Generosity and a great place to write: Beatrice Monti della Corte and the staff of the Santa Maddalena Foundation.
Inestimable faith and support: Nicole Aragi, Christie Hauser, Duvall Osteen, Amy Tan, Colm Tóibín, Silvia Querini, John Freeman, Tony Chakar, Andrea Laguni, Teri Boyd, Sasha Hemon.
Translation of Antara’s poem: Fady Joudah.
Randa, Rania, and Raya, of course.
Thank you.
Table of Contents
Cover
An Unnecessary Woman
Also by Rabih Alameddine
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
An Unnecessary Woman
Acknowledgments
An Unnecessary Woman Page 26