The Translator

After the untimely death of her husband, Sammar sent her infant boy back to her family in Sudan and stayed in Aberdeen, Scotland, trying to knit her life back together while grieving and working as a translator. One of the professors she often works with is Rae, an Islamic scholar who understand her religion and the way she thinks. It is almost inevitable that the two of them will try to find a way towards each other. Except that for Sammar, Islam is her life - she is born to be a wife and she is Muslim first and anything else after that. Rae on the other hand studies and understands it - but does not believe and does not want to convert (and have a lot of valid reasons besides the fact that he simply does not believe).

That could have show more been the setup for a wonderful slow burn of a novel. Using the two different settings for the two parts of the novel (the cold Aberdeen and the sunny Sudan) add even more to the feeling of separation. Sammar and Rae do not seem to have anything in common and yet, their connection is there - even when they both deny it. Except that Sammar is unwilling to change and consider anything but what she thinks is right - even if that means never seeing Rae again.

And herein lies the problem. Had the roles been reversed, with the man insisting on his faith and his way and the woman being expected to submit to it and change, the novel would have probably never been published. Writing the novel this way, with Sammar essentially filling that cliched male role of past romance novels, diminishes the power of the novel considerably. It could have been an exploration of faith and religion (not even remotely the same except in Sammar's thinking) and of finding a way to bridge the differences between cultures. Instead it ended up a reversed romance cliche more than anything.

The writing is good and there are a lot of well-written and well-thought sequences in the book. It probably draws on the author's life in places and these insights into her thinking do make up for the strained main story. I just wish she had not tried to mold it so close to the standard stories (with the genders reversed). show less

I wanted to like this but too many things annoy me about it.

The character spent the first 7 years of her life in Britain, then returned to Sudan with her parents and went to school there. Yet in the setting of the novel, she's now living in Aberdeen, Scotland and constantly referring to how alien it is. Every chapter has reflections on how weird the weather/light/weather-appropriate-clothing/etc. is in Scotland. This may be true, but it strikes me as implausible that someone who spent her first 7 years in Scotland would later find the climate so startlingly alien. She might grow unaccustomed to it but surely some familiarity would linger? It might make sense if the character had left when still a baby, but a 7-year-old can show more remember.

Next, the translator works in academia, but the author has portrayed academia with a series of lazy tropes that are pretty inexcusable from someone who works in academia herself (as her bio states). It's a common trope in literature and television that professors have a cushy office and a host of secretaries taking care of all their menial tasks for them. This is not how academia is and hasn't been for decades (if it ever was). It's annoying to see these lazy stereotypes here.

The weird dream descriptions became distracting and didn't really add anything to the story. I'm not sure why they were included, to be honest.

Finally, the part that really makes me give this just 2 stars, is that the main character is just so annoyingly selfish it hurts. Everything is about her. Even when she makes a decision near the end of the book that she tells herself is for another person, it's really for her because the end goal is to make that person how she wants them to be. Not only is there no compromise, it never once occurs to the character that the other person's beliefs and values are important to him and worth consideration from her. (The fact that the religion involved here is Islam is irrelevant; this kind of behavior would be equally self-righteous and self-centered if it were any other religion or lack thereof.) The result is a spoiled, uninteresting character. show less

'It's a lonely thing,' he said, 'you can't avoid it.'
'What?'
'The spiritual path. Everyone is on his own in this.'
-From The Translator, page 202-

Sammar, a Sudanese widow who has left her child in the care of her aunt and moved to Scotland to become an Arabic translator, narrates this poetic novel of love and faith.

I have read some critical reviews of this book which condemn it as "only a love story." The Translator is, in fact, a love story - but it is also much more. Aboulela is a controlled, meditative writer who weaves a deeper meaning into her novel. The gapping maw between cultures and religions are exposed in this simple story with a subtleness I appreciated. The author explores grief, and moving on, and clinging to one's faith - show more all anchored in an exquisite atmosphere of place.

Aboulela has a finely tuned sense of what it means to love. In one scene, Sammar is cooking soup for Rae, a man who Sammar loves and who has been ill. In this uncomplicated act, Aboulela reveals something about Sammar's character which anyone who has loved another can relate to.

'She made soup for him. She cut up courgettes, celery and onion. Her feelings were in the soup. The froth that rose to the surface of the water when she boiled the chicken, the softened, shapeless tomatoes. Pasta shaped into the smallest stars. Spice that she had to search for, the name unknown in English, not in any of the Arabic-English dictionaries that she had.' -From The Translator, page 97-

The Translator transports the reader to another culture, offering glimpses into what it means to have faith and how difficult it is to abide by one's beliefs. It is not a complicated novel; but it left me contemplating the larger issues of life.

Recommended. show less

Sammar is a Sudanese widow living in Scotland. In the four years since her husband's death, she has lived in a tiny one room apartment, indifferent to her threadbare clothing, her poverty and even the mold on her cheese. But as she gradually falls for Rae, her Scottish employer and Islamic scholar, she wakes up to the world around her. Rae is gifted with the ability to make her feel at home in a strange country, but their differences in faith seem almost impossible to negotiate. Finding out if they'll be able to resolve these conflicts creates suspense in the novel.

Reading this book reminded me of eating the extra-creamy milk chocolate bar my boyfriend bought me: it's undeniably good, but so heavy it's hard to take in more than a little show more at a time. With only 200 pages of text, writer Leila Aboulela clearly hasn't gone overboard with descriptive writing. Yet, every page of the novel is drenched with atmosphere. Reading just five pages sometimes made me feel so full I had to put the book down. This is probably why it took me a long time to get into the story. But, once the novel caught hold of me, I was fully absorbed. As I neared the home stretch, I could see dozens of possible ways for the book to end. What the writer chose surprised me a little, but I feel she chose the best possible ending: one that tied up enough loose ends to leave you feeling satisfied, but with plenty left over for your imagination. There's a "solution" for each one of the characters, but none are without complications.

I enjoyed this book as both an example of Muslim women's writing and as a document of the immigrant experience. Unlike a lot of Muslim women in the media these days, Sammar, the main character, doesn't feel oppressed by her religion. Fulfilling the requirements of her faith demands self-discipline and difficult decisions, but she never doubts it's a positive force in her life. Because we see only through her eyes, we get an authentic perspective on both Islam and the experience of an immigrant in Scotland. She's not trying to explain her faith to a Western audience; she simply lives it and lets us see it. I savored the small culture shocks of her adopted country, like seeing women walking huge dogs that seem capable of eating babies. Little moments like these brought home her outsider status far more effectively than long monologues on isolation.

Recommended: for people who are curious about the world and don't mind a small book that takes a long time to read. show less

a very rare 5 stars for a book i finished yesterday and still thinking about today and i've got a feeling will be reminded of it all my life
sameera's character resonated with me most
i shifted to stay in scotland north of aberdeen as a teenager and stayed there for the next 20 years on and off
the weather and its affect on everything still strums a chord inside me
her rejection in love and her reaction to rejection - so real - could have should have been me
no spoilers but loved right through to the end

Sammar is a Sudanese woman, working at a university in Aberdeen as an Arabic translator. She is tormented with grief over her husband's tragic death four years ago, and the manner in which she was subsequently ostracized by her mother-in-law. Her young son, Amir, remained in Khartoum and is being raised by her mother-in-law and other relatives. Sammar lives in a spartan apartment; she has not decorated, nor has she bought any new clothing, since becoming a widow. She struggles to cope with the Scottish customs and weather, and her only social contact is with her university colleagues.

Most of her translation work is done for Rae, an Islamic scholar and department head at the university. Rae is divorced and lonely, and it seems almost show more inevitable that Rae and Sammar become close. Yet the customs of Sammar's culture, and of the Islamic religion, do not make it easy to express her feelings. She does so in small gestures, which seem bold to her: visiting him in hospital, and meticulously making soup to help him heal. Rae does not practice any particular religion, and Sammar knows the only way their relationship can be sanctioned is if he were to convert to Islam. This is not a subject the pair can discuss openly, yet Sammar hold fast to her beliefs.

Rae arranges for Sammar to travel to Egypt for some translation work, and she then goes to Khartoum for an extended stay with family and a reunion with her son. There is much to comfort her here, but her relationship with her mother-in-law is still strained. While she is in Africa, Rae experiences a journey of his own; one of faith, which he describes, "... it didn't have anything to do with how much I've read or how many facts I've learned about Islam. Knowledge is necessary, that's true. But faith, it comes direct from Allah."

Leila Aboulela's prose is dreamy and wonderful. This was a short book, and yet I found myself setting it down every 50 pages or so, just to reflect on the text and allow it to wash over me. show less

#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Sudan

This is an award-winning novel by Sudanese author Leila Aboulela. It is set in Aberdeen, a slow-burn gentle romance between Sudanese widow Sammar, and university professor Rae, who she works as a translator for. Religion is a major obstacle for them. I enjoyed the romance and the difficulty Sammar found in adapting to the grey and drab life in Scotland. It did however at times feel more like a religious tract promoting Islam than a novel. 3.5 stars