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This thesis examines the part played by Palestinian literature in the formation of national consciousness. The importance of literature to national and anti-colonial struggles has long been recognised, but in the Palestinian situation it has taken on additional significance. Firstly, in the absence of territory it sought to unite a geographically dispersed people, many of whom had suffered severe trauma on being ejected from their homes and lands. A national imagining was vital to overcome feelings of alienation, both from the land and from other sectors of the population, and to create the idea of a national homeland, based on claims to spatial and historical belonging. Secondly, it had to counter a powerful ideology: that of the Zionist claim to the same land. The land is not just a geographical space; it is invested with memories and narratives, and it comes to embody what it means to be Palestinian. Thus the struggle is not only over the land but also over the meaning of the land. However, when a nationalist struggle is predicated largely on tropes of possession of a feminised land, a specifically gendered conception of national agency emerges, one that envisages the masculine as active and the feminine as passive. This thesis therefore investigates the implications of such an imagining. The question of how women themselves relate to the gendered discourse of nationalism - both how they attempt to insert themselves as national agents and how they contest masculinist tropes - is also considered. Additionally, Palestinian women frequently have to cross the psychologically-imposed threshold between the private and public realms, a division that is reinforced not only by patriarchy but also by fundamentalist visions of nation. In this respect, the significance of literature as an imaginary realm in which dominant paradigms can be questioned and reconfigured must not be underestimated. Finally, this thesis examines how writing helps overcome the sense of alienation associated with exile. A powerful dialectic is at work in exilic consciousness: the here-and-now of the hostile present is countered by the there-and-then of a sustaining past, but it is out of this dialectic that possibilities for the future emerge. I look at the way in which the playful appropriation of exile as the motif of our post-modern consciousness is challenged by much Palestinian exilic writing. Some writers find consolations in the condition of exile, while others reconfigure the meanings of return and journeying. The complexity and multivalent nature of Palestinian writing create a heterogeneous conception of nation that becomes the ideal of an inclusive national consciousness.

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The main focus of the current study is on translation quality assurance. In studying the translation process, the present study does not confine itself to the micro-level of translating, i.e. reading, analysing, comprehending, transferring, polishing the draft translation and the like. Rather, the translation process is studied from a perspective of translation as industry; it is divided into three main phases, namely: 1. pre-translation, 2. translation and 3. post-translation. Each of these three phases of the translation process requires those involved in the whole project to take certain steps that correspond to each level’s requirements with a view to ensuring the quality of the translation process that leads to the quality of the product. The translation process at its macro level is envisaged in this research as a set of constraint-motivated strategies. Dealing with the text at hand, translators encounter a set of constraints. In studying these constraints and their effects on the final shape of the translated text, constraints are divided into two types, viz. verbal constraints driven by the text itself (e.g. language-related constraints, textual constraints, cultural constraints with a micro nature, communicative constraints, pragmatic constraints, semiotic constraints and stylistic constraints) and non-verbal constraints originating from outside the text (e.g. cultural constraints with a macro level, purpose of translation, generic conventions, intended readership, power of patronage, master discourse of translation, text typological constraints, discoursal constraints, norm-imposed constraints and translator-related constraints). It has been shown that the relationship between the constraints imposed on the translator and the strategies available is not a one-to-one relationship, but rather the strategy is sometimes a result of more than one constraint. As people are different in perceiving world reality, in their tolerance to the pressure exerted on them, in their beliefs, feelings, cultural background, ideologies, attitudes,such a selection among available strategies is subjective rather than objective, being attributable to translators’ ideology, idiolect, competence, experience, skills and social and religious background.

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This thesis sets out to record, analyze, and assess modern Sudanese literature within its historical, cultural, and political context. It highlights the diversity and distinctiveness of that literature, the wide range of its themes, and the resilience and complex background of its major practitioners. A principal preoccupation of the study, however, is to point out the various challenges this literature, its universality and appeal notwithstanding, poses to translators. The close and intimate connection between its bold and vibrant colloquial expressions and the cultural and geographical environment in which these expressions are entrenched makes the task of the translator, especially one translating into a somewhat “remote” language like English, fraught with difficulty, at times unachievable. The near impossibility of rendering such expressions, proverbs, allusions to religious texts, and metaphors into English is illustrated in many examples. Paradoxically, such inadequacies and challenges, analysed from a semantic and syntactical perspective and investing in translation theory, point to a remarkable resilience and inventiveness of the translators involved as well as to the importance of translation in acting as a bridge between cultures. This thesis is structured in three parts. Part One examines the historical, cultural, social, political, religious, and linguistic factors that went into the making of modern Sudanese literature. Using postcolonial theory, it explores in some depth Sudanese cultural identity and self-identification as expressed in and partly shaped by the evolving literature. That body of written, and, in part, oral expression, was traditionally nourished by the two main streams of Arab and African cultures, but was steadily enriched under British occupation by exposure to Western, and principally English, literature and literary criteria as well as by a modern system of education. The study highlights what it claims to be highly distinctive and indeed unique features of Sudanese literature, reflecting the many-sidedness and complexity of its country, itself being a huge melting pot, whose very existence has been severely tested in more recent times. Part Two of the study offers a critical survey of Sudanese literature, examining its two main genres, poetry and fiction, and its evolution over three major literary periods, the Neoclassical, the Romantic and the Social Realist. The contributions made by literary movements or groups established and led by some prominent cultural and national figures and in which belles-lettres and patriotism were interwoven are also highlighted and assessed. This part elaborates on the dynamic which saw modern Sudanese writers interacting with influences from Western literature and investing in new literary genres while maintaining links with and creatively building on traditional and modern Arabic literature, itself evolving under various influences and requirements from without each country and within. Part Three focuses on Sudanese literature in English translation through a close analysis of representative texts with a view to illustrating and addressing specific problems and challenges associated with the task of translation. The samples are drawn from the literary genres and texts discussed in Part Two and are reflective of the themes tackled in the first two parts, thus emphasising the coherence and unity of the study. The methodology used involves applying theories of translation but also invests in insights gained from interviews conducted with some of the writers and translators discussed in the study as well as from feedback provided by ten native speaker informants. Taking into consideration the hybrid nature of modern Sudanese Literature and the cultural and linguistic diversity of its context, many difficulties are highlighted along with the range of strategies used by translators to address them.