Raed Qassas

Taibah University, Madinah, Saudi Arabia, Department of Languages and Translation, Faculty Member

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I am an assistant professor of English Literature at Taibah University (KSA). I have taught several courses on British, American, and Caribbean Literature, in addition to courses on Postcolonialism. I published a work entitled Resolution and the Briefest End: Suicide in Shakespeare’s Tragedies in 2011. Currently, I am in the process of publishing a paper on Violence in Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. My main research area is literary theory and interpretation (Hermeneutics), which I formalised in my PhD (2016).

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Translation and the Individual Talent: Ambiguity in the Qurʾanic Text and the Role of the Translator

AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, 2021

This article examines the impact of traditional Tafsīr, the exegesis of the Qur'an, on the transl... more This article examines the impact of traditional Tafsīr, the exegesis of the Qur'an, on the translation of the Qurʾanic text into English. Caught between the authority of tradition and the sensitivity of translating a sacred text, many translators refrain from practicing interpretation as an integral part of the translation process, whereas others defiantly dismiss the authority of tradition en masse. The significance of the study lies in undermining over-reliance on explanatory texts yielding semantically dogmatic interpretations recurrently manifest in the various English renditions of the Qurʾan. The article questions what is called the etic translation that involves translation from the perspective of one who remains an outsider and does not participate in the interpretation. The finding of the study lead to the conclusion that many translations of the Qurʾan disregard possible interpretations because of rehashing interpretations handed down from traditional exegeses. The article also argues that translators have an active, interpretative role in the translation of the Qurʾan.Compatibility with tradition does not mean being constricted exclusively by Tafsīr. Tradition is a frame of reference, a point of departure for new horizons of interpretation where interpretation is viewed as an augmentation to tradition, not sedition.

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The Diasporic Narrative: Identity Crisis in Ghasan Kanafani's Men in the Sun

International Journal of Comparative Literature & Translation Studies, 2021

This study examines Ghasan Kanafani's Men in the Sun as a representative novella of the Palestini... more This study examines Ghasan Kanafani's Men in the Sun as a representative novella of the Palestinian identity crisis among the Palestinian refugees in the aftermath of the Nakba in 1948. Kanafani's emplotment of this identity crisis is couched in a diasporic narrative that lays bare a double plot, one before 1948 and another following it. The narrative split reveals a sharp contrast between the present state of the characters on their journey to Kuwait, the promised land, and the past as revealed in their reminiscences of homeland. The paradisaic images of homeland are woven with images of Hellish existence under the scorching sun of the desert. This double narrative is indicative of the split psyche of the characters which is symptomatic of an identity crisis. Their pursuit of a way out of this conflicting state ends with a collective, tragic disillusionment; they end up dead and thrown on a garbage heap without even a proper burial place. Kanafani weaves the different mini narrative threads into one tragic denouement since his novella is not about the fate of individual characters but that of a nation. The silence of the characters prior to their death is a Kanafanian prophecy of the future of the Palestinian Cause after it has lost its power of speech and ended, like the characters, dead on the garbage heap of history.

format_quoteCharacters in Men in the Sun symbolize Palestinian identity; their deaths reflect failed exiles and the nation's current plight.format_quote

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Raed Qassas

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