Scholarship in modern Arabic literary studies has treated the literature of the Lebanese Civil War, particularly novels written by women, in some depth. One of the most important texts used in both scholarship and teaching about this war is Ḥanān al-Shaykh’s Ḥikāyat Zahrah, translated as The Story of Zahra. This article focuses specifically on the one chapter in the novel narrated from the point of view of the protagonist’s uncle in order to explore how the English translation dramatically changes a number of elements in the original text. It uses insights from translation studies to show how significant changes to the novel in translation produce a text that serves particular ideological functions in English, consistent with a horizon of expectations that constructs Arab women as oppressed and passive victims of war. The article analyzes specific translation choices—most notably the extensive editing out of words, sentences, and passages—to demonstrate how the character of Zahrah’s uncle is changed in English and depicted as an unsavory and abusive man with little background, context, or history that would help the reader to better understand the character’s actions and motivations. It also shows how cutting out elements of the uncle’s story serves to depoliticize the text in English, divesting it of its local political context and changing its meaning and function as a novel about the Lebanese Civil War. The article is grounded in postcolonial, feminist translation studies, especially those dealing with Arabic fiction, to argue that the English-language novel The Story of Zahra functions within an ideological field that recycles stereotypes and tropes about Arab women. It will propose that the translation changes here depict Arab men against Arab women, rather than in relation to them, and subordinate the analysis of politics and communal relations to a more individual and individualized story of one exceptional woman.

现代阿拉伯文学研究中的奖学金已对黎巴嫩内战的文学，特别是妇女创作的小说进行了较为深入的研究。shipanānal-Shaykh的《ḤikāyatZahrah》（译为《扎赫拉的故事》）在学术界和有关这场战争的教学中使用的最重要的文字之一。本文专门从主人公的叔叔的角度着眼于小说的一章，以探讨英语翻译如何显着改变原文中的许多元素。它使用翻译研究的见解来表明翻译小说的重大变化是如何产生具有英语特殊意识形态功能的文本的，这符合期望的前景，使阿拉伯妇女成为受压迫和被动的战争受害者。本文分析了具体的翻译选择，其中最值得注意的是对单词，句子和段落进行了广泛的编辑，以证明扎拉（Zahrah）叔叔的性格是如何用英语改变的，并被描绘成一个粗俗而无礼的人，背景，语境，或有助于读者更好地了解角色的行为和动机的历史。它还显示了删除叔叔故事中的元素如何使英语文本非政治化，剥夺其当地政治背景并改变其含义和作用，成为一部有关黎巴嫩内战的小说。本文以后殖民女性主义翻译研究为基础，尤其是那些涉及阿拉伯小说的研究，认为该英语小说扎赫拉的故事在一个思想领域内发挥作用，该思想领域对阿拉伯妇女的陈规定型观念和偏见进行回收。它将建议，这里的翻译变化是针对阿拉伯妇女而不是阿拉伯妇女，而不是阿拉伯妇女，而是将政治和社区关系的分析服从于一个更加独特和个性化的关于一名杰出妇女的故事。