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Authors: Catarina Rodrigues Fonte
Keywords: translation studies, Khalil Gibran, re(thinking) the classics through translation, re(translation)
Abstract: Khalil Gibran’s literary figure is one filled with admiration and recognition from the Eastern and Western literary canons since the publication of his seminal poetry work, The Prophet, in 1923. Composed of 26-prose poetry, The Prophet has single-handedly linked the Arab world to the Americas and from there to the world at large, continuously appealing to generations of readers who to this day remain mesmerized by his poetic genius and mystic philosophy. To this day, it has been translated into more than 100 languages, including Assamese (Indian dialect) and Occitan (provincial France), and even extinct ones, such as Katova or Laghu (Santa Isabel Island, Solomon Islands).
Historically, The Prophet has also been subject to numerous retranslations within a 95 year-span, which makes it an unmatched linguistic phenomenon. In 2015, the Arab World English Journal published a study conducted by Mourad El Khatibi , which granted Khalil’s work a classical take on the challenges of the literary translator. Additionally, in 2017, a new study entitled The Machine Translation Quality of Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’, by Zakaryia Almahasees of the University of Perth, brought The Prophet to the forefront of the latest developments in Machine Translation, by shedding light to Gibran’s work through a rather unconventional lens for a work of poetry. So why does The Prophet continue to inspire such a universal and multilingual readership, in the brink of the 100th anniversary of its publication? The answer may lie in the fact that its constant retranslation has allowed for The Prophet’s message to continue reaching older and newer generations alike, giving each reader the opportunity to “hear” the Prophet through a different voice. What Gibran really intended with his words we may never know, but we know that retranslations allow for various interpretations, which is where the true essence of poetry resides.