Agency in the translation and production of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan into Persian

Agency in the translation and production of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan into Persian

Esmaeil Haddadian MoghaddamUniversitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona

There is increasing interest in the “sociology of translation”, agents of transla-tion, and the agency of translators in Translation Studies. But more research is needed on actual people involved in the production, distribution, and reception of translation, and factors affecting these inter-relations. In this article, my inter-est is in agency in the translation and production of James Morier’s picaresque novel, The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824) into Persian. Drawing on Persia’s politics, society and culture of the 19th century, I contextualize both the English and the Persian texts and show how Mirza Habib Isfahani, the translator, intervened in the text in order to exercise his exilic agency. The translator’s inter-ventions in the text show that for him the ethics of political progress was more important than the ethics of fidelity to foreign text. The article also examines the agency of other translation agents: the English Major in charge of the editing and publication of the Persian translation in Calcutta; and a Persian dissident and copyist whose tragic death transformed his posthumous agency from a cross-border copyist to a misidentified translator for more than 50 years.

Keywords: agency, translation agents, 19th century Persia, The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, intercultural transfers

“As to how the translator has accomplished his difficult task,

let the Persians decide”. (Phillott 1905: v)

1. Introduction

Mirza Habib Isfahani, a Persian poet and translator, was forced to leave Iran or what was then Persia in 1866 for Constantinople on charges of satirizing the Prime Minister of the time.1 He never returned to Persia. However, his Persian

Target 23:2 (2011), 206–234. doi 10.1075/target.23.2.04hadissn 0924–1884 / e-issn 1569–9986 © John Benjamins Publishing Company

Agency in translation and production of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan into Persian 207

translation of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (hereafter The Adventures), still in print, found its way not only to Calcutta and Persia, but also to the heated debates surrounding both the translation and the translator. The novel was written by a curious British diplomat, James Justinian Morier, and was published in 1824 in London, appearing in the same year in French in Paris.2 The Persian version was published in 1905 in Calcutta.3 Neither the English nor the French publishers mentioned the name of the author or of the translator. The Persian version, how-ever, misidentified the translator. Why so much confusion?

In this article, we re-read the history of the Persian translation of Morier’s The Adventures from the point of view of agency and agents of translation. We will pay particular attention to the translation agents involved in the production of the Persian version. In my analysis of the Persian translation, I argue that for Isfahani, the Persian translator, the ethics of political progress was higher than the ethics of fidelity to foreign text as one way to exercise his agency in exile. I will also examine the movement of the English and Persian texts and of translation agents between the discourse of “colonialist-orientalist” and “anti-colonialist imaginaries” that have formed much of the critical discourses surrounding both texts. My analysis of the translation agents will also allow me to propose the concepts of “pro-risk trans-lation agents” and “traveling agency” in an attempt to enlarge our view of agency.

2. Theoretical framework and method

Close attention to human translators in research in Translation Studies (TS) can be traced back to 1998 when Anthony Pym proposed his four “principles” for translation historiography (1998: xi). The movement of texts and translators is also one of the main topics in Pym’s earlier work (1992) where he sees an “interculture” working between physical borders. Pym’s recent call for “humanizing translation history” invites us to trace “professional intercultures” and map their networks (2009: 37). This should obviously involve translation agents beyond translators. That said, in the light of growing interest in the “sociology of translation” (see Wolf 2010, among others), my theoretical framework is informed by studies that focus on agency and translation agents in TS.

The first work focusing on translation agents is a collection of articles edited by Milton and Bandia called Translation Agents (2009). The editors build on the definition of the agent presented by Shuttleworth and Cowie (1997: 321), that is, a person who “is in [an] intermediary position between a translator and end user of a translation” (ibid.). Milton’s and Bandia’s definition covers a broad range of indi-viduals and even cultural or political bodies are seen as translation agents. In terms of the effects of translation agents, the editors distinguish between translation

208 Esmaeil Haddadian Moghaddam

agents whose translations bring about “stylistic innovations”, and those who also play cultural and political roles in their immediate environments (2009: 2). There-fore, my use of the term “agents of translation” in this case study refers to three intermediaries coming between the English version of The Adventures and its Per-sian translation (see Section 3 below).

In the same volume, Outi Paloposki (2009) builds on Kaisa Koskinen’s distinc-tion between three different kinds of visibility (textual, paratextual and extratex-tual) and offers three types of agency. She sees textual agency as “translator’s voice in the text, […] her/his footprints, […]”. Paratextual agency is “the translator’s role in inserting and adding notes and prefaces”, and extratextual agency concerns “the selection of books to be translated, the use of different editions and intermediary translation […]” (2009: 191). The border between these classifications is not clear-cut, and they can overlap each other. Paloposki’s classification also overlooks the motives of the translation agents in exhibiting, selecting or exercising a particular kind of agency, a set of different kinds of agency, or more than one set of agency, as this article demonstrates.

In the Introduction to Kinnunen and Koskinen (2010), the editors argue that they aim to move beyond Bourdieu’s much quoted sociological concepts and search for other approaches that might help “enlarge our view on the issue of agen-cy” (ibid.: 5).4 The editors also present a definition of agency as “willingness and ability to act” (2011: 6), agreed among presenters at the symposium, “Translators’ Agency” (2008), held at the University of Tampere, Finland.

While I adopt the above definition in my article at the outset, it needs some modifications. First, translation agents need some form of capacity to exercise their agency in order to put their willingness and ability into practice. Secondly, this definition overlooks the decision-making power of the individual translator and the possible risk associated with agency. The translator may be willing and able to exercise their agency; however, they may also avoid it or adopt an intermediate position. As we will see later in this article, some translation agents move beyond the willingness and ability to act. Following Pym’s question whether translators “take risks” (2010: 166), and based on my historical analyses, I will show that some translation agents, whom we may call pro-risk agents, have taken risks, whereas “risk-averse” agents do not take risk (ibid.). In addition, the study of translation agents and their experiences in exile (see e.g. Berk Albachten 2010) is a develop-ing subject of study that can enhance our understanding of the translator’s agency, setting the stage for exploring the concept of traveling agency.

Having outlined the theoretical framework, a few words on method are need-ed here. I have adopted an empirical, historical and archival research methodology (Williams and Chesterman 2002: 65–7) taking as my criteria for evaluating the quality of documents the authenticity, credibility, representativeness, and meaning


of the evidence (following Scott 1990: 6 quoted in Bryman 2008: 516). Bearing in mind these criteria throughout my research, I have used various online databas-es to obtain my data. The nature of my historical research likewise necessitated visits to a number of libraries, establishing contact with various research centers, individuals and researchers in Iran, Sweden, England, Turkey, India and France. In addition to thematic analysis of the historical documents, and an overview of previous research, I provide a textual analysis of the Persian translation of The Adventures in order to illustrate the translator’s agency.

3. Once upon a time in Britain, Persia and India

In this section, I will introduce four 19th century characters who never met each other, although their interests and practices did. Two of them were British, and two were Persian. The following anecdote is about these four people: an author and three translation agents.

3.1 James Justinian Morier

James Justinian Morier (see Figure 1) was born in 1782 of Swiss and Dutch parents in Smyrna, on the Turkish side of the Aegean Sea. Forty eight years later, in 1824, after his two diplomatic missions to Persia, he published the picaresque novel The Adventures, which secured his fame.

Morier’s missions to Persia in the early 19th century (1808 and 1811, amount-ing to a total stay of six years) formed part of Britain’s policy of securing its impe-rial power in a country which was historically a zone for conflicts between the Russians, the Ottoman Empire and Napoleonic France (see Johnston 1998). Be-fore publishing his bestseller The Adventures (3 vols, London, 1824), Morier pub-lished two books on his journeys to Persia and Asia Minor (1812, 1818) providing ethnographic accounts of the early Qajar period.5 Before The Adventures was pub-lished, the British readership had been exposed to Alain-René Lesage’s Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (4 vols., Paris, 1715–35) in English (1749) and Thomas Hope’s popular novel, Anastasius (1819), two popular picaresque novels, the for-mer of which is argued to be the model for Morier’s The Adventures (Amanat 2003, Rastegar 2007).

The Adventures narrates the peculiar story of Hajji Baba, a barber’s son from Isfahan, Persia, and his picaresque adventures through hardships and misfortunes, and the ways he succeeds, mainly because of his resourcefulness, in attaining a position as secretary to a Persian diplomat (for a detailed account of the story, see Amanat 2003).


3.2 Mirza Habib Isfahani

Moving on to Persia: Mirza Habib Isfahani (hereafter Isfahani) (Figure 2), was born in 1251/1836 in a village called Ben, near the modern-day city of Shahrehkord in Iran.6 As an outspoken writer and poet accused of “slandering the prime minister of the time” (Sanjabi 1998: 252), he escaped in 1866 to Constantinople. Apparently around 1886 (Yazici 2002), Isfahani translated The Adventures into Persian. He died in 1893 (Afshar 1339/1960: 494). He neither saw his translation published, nor was he recognized as the translator for more than half of a century (see note 12).

Long before the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911),7 Isfahani, having completed his studies in theology, literature and Islamic methodology in both Persia and Baghdad, Iraq, and having established contacts with Persian dissidents abroad, was forced to leave Persia as mentioned earlier (see Sanjabi 1998: 252, Balaÿ and Cuypers 1983: 41). Isfahani has also been accused of being a member of the Faramush-Khaneh, a secret society modeled on European Masonic lodg-es, and an atheist, though there is little or no evidence for these accusations (see

Figure 1. James Justinian Morier, the author of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (Johnston 1998)


Azarang 1381/2002: 35). Isfahani made Constantinople his home in 1866 (Afshar 1339/1960: 493). He worked there as a Persian instructor and translator, at a time when the Ottomans’ socio-cultural environment was changing due to the political movement of the Young Ottomans (see Paker 1998: 577–8). Constantinople was also becoming one of the centers of the Persian intelligentsia and dissidents, pro-viding a forum for publishing the Persian press (see Nabavi 2009: unpaginated).

Various Iranian scholars talk of Isfahani learning French and other languages while in exile, however only one non-Iranian scholar provides reliable evidence. In his study of the 19th century calligraphers, Stanley (2006: 96) examines Isfah-ani’s role and his book, Hat ve Hâtttân (1887–8) [Calligraphy and Calligraphers]. He quotes from Inal, “a successor” of Isfahani, that Habib [Isfahani was known in Constantinople as Habib Efendi] “for 21 years taught Persian and Arabic at the Galatasaray Lycée [high school] and Persian and French at the Darüşşafaka [a secondary school]” (Stanley 2006: 96). Isfahani also published Dastur-e Sokhan, the first systematic Persian grammar in 1872 in Constantinople,8 and several pub-lications in Persian and Turkish, including his Persian translations of Molière’s Le Misanthrope in 1869–70 and Le Sage’s Gil Blas.9

3.3 Haji Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi Kermani

Haji Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi Kermani (hereafter Kermani) (Figure 3) was born in 1272/1855 in Persia. Kermani was an associate of Isfahani in Constantinople, and while crossing the Ottoman-Persian border in 1897, he was arrested by the

Figure 2. Mirza Habib Isfahani, the Persian translator of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (Tazici 2002)


Ottomans, being suspected of having played a part in the murder of Nasir al-Din Shah (1831–1896), the then king of Persia. Kermani was butchered in Tabriz, Per-sia, by the Persian authorities, and a manuscript copy of Isfahani’s translation of The Adventures was found among his belongings.

The role of Kermani has become less prominent in the discourse surrounding The Adventures, mainly because he was misidentified as the translator of the book. He arrived in Constantinople possibly in 1886 and worked as a Persian and Arabic instructor and a copyist of manuscripts. Kermani soon took an active role in the po-litical movement of the time, led by Afghani, a political activist who was aiming to unify the Islamic world against the Qajars’ despotism (see Keddie 1983, 2006: 177–179). Kermani is reported to have cooperated with Isfahani as an editor and copyist (Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a: 14). His political correspondence with the Muslim theologians (Ulema) of Qum, Najaf and Mashhad were seized by the Iranian au-thorities, who demanded his extradition from the Ottoman Empire. Pressure was intensified after the assassination of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajar king, in 1896 by an associate of Kermani and his circle. Kermani and two other associates were extradit-ed to Persia where they met their tragic end (see Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a: 16; and Phillott’s introduction to the 1905 edition of the Persian translation).10

The misidentification of Kermani as the Persian translator of The Adventures remains an interesting case of the myriad ways agency can be misattributed in intercultural transfers. In his introduction to The Adventures, Edward Browne, who described Kermani as “a man of much learning and imposing appearance” (1910: 93), tells of a letter he received from Kermani in 1892, in which Isfahani is

Figure 3. Haji Sheikh Ahmad Ruhi Kermani, the misidentified translator of the 1905 edi-tion of the Persian translation of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (Phillott: 1905)


introduced as the translator of The Adventures from French. Kermani asks Browne for his cooperation in publishing the book, because despite Isfahani’s willingness to publish the translation in Constantinople, the “Censor of the Press” (Browne 1895: xxi) would not permit it.11 Having identified Isfahani as the Persian trans-lator in 1895, Browne committed a similar mistake in his fourth volume of The Literary History of Persia in 1924 by misidentifying Kermani as the translator. Ka-mshad, who has published a facsimile of Kermani’s letter to Browne and is cred-ited with being one of the Iranian scholars who identify Isfahani as the first Per-sian translator of The Adventures, attributes Browne’s mistake to his age and “poor health” (1966: 23). In the same vein, Rastegar suspects that Browne’s “deliberate misidentification” might have been due to his support for Persian constitutional-ists, with whom Kermani was covertly affiliated (2007: 258).

Of particular interest is how Phillott (see below) remained totally unaware of Browne’s introduction to The Adventures (1895), and even more surprising is his erroneous identification of Kermani as the translator in his introduction to the second edition (1924) from Cambridge where he, as Kamshad (1966: 23) argues, must have met Browne.

Similar attempts have been made to save Isfahani from oblivion. The Per-sian scholar Mojtaba Minovi is known to have found a manuscript of Isfahani’s translation in the University of Istanbul Library in 1961 (see Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a: 12), while Jamalzade, another Persian author, makes a similar claim (see Afshar 1339/1960; Kamshad 2010).12

3.4 Douglas Craven Phillott

The last translation agent in our story is Major Douglas Craven Phillott (Figure 4). Phillott was born in 1860 in India,13 and although his name is hardly remembered in Britain, he is remembered, at least by the Iranians, for his role as the editor and the main publishing agent of the first Persian translation of The Adventures, in Calcutta, India, in 1905.

As mentioned above, the manuscript copy of Isfahani’s translation of The Ad-ventures was found among Kermani’s belongings. However, it is not clear how the manuscript was handed over to Kermani’s family in Kerman, more than 1,500 kilo-meters from Tabriz. Kalbasi (1382/2003: 44) assumes that Kermani’s family, having feared the government’s brutality, sought Phillott’s support for the publication of the manuscript. Phillott, who was the British Consul in Kerman at the time, ap-preciated the manuscript immediately.14 Phillott went to India, edited and anno-tated the manuscript, and published the translation in 1905 at the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. Although he is viewed as the savior of the book (Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a), he committed a substantial error by introducing Kermani as the translator.


Figure 4. Major Douglas Craven Phillott, the editor of the 1905 edition of the Persian translation. Photo by Rich Meadows from a portrait hanging in the “bury” of Felsted School, Essex, England

Figure 5. The title page of The Adventures of Haji Baba of Ispahan, edited by Phillott and published in 1905 in Calcutta


Phillott’s work on the Persian MS had a pedagogical purpose. On each page of the Persian copy, he provides footnotes explaining Persian words and expres-sions, proverbs, idioms and, in some cases, noting mistakes in the translation (e.g. on page 1, footnote 6). He sometimes misinterprets Isfahani’s translation (e.g. on page xiv, for Persian باربر [porter] he suggests متحمل [bearing/suffering] which does not carry the ironic meaning in Isfahani’s translation; cf. Modarres Sadeghi’s analysis of Phillott’s work on the 1905 edition, 1379/2000: 43–44).

Table 1 provides the timeline of the key events, and Figure 6 provides a simple illustration of the movement of our translation agents and the texts in the transla-tion and production of The Adventures into Persian.

Figure 6. The movement of the translation agents and the texts.

Table 1. The timeline of the key events in the translation and production of The Adven-tures in English and Persian

Year Event

1824 Publication of Morier’s The Adventures in England and France

1866 Isfahani leaves Persia to Constantinople

1886 Isfahani translates The Adventures into Persian

1886 Kermani arrives in Constantinople

1896 Kermani is butchered in Tabriz, Persia

1905 Phillott edits and publishes The Adventures in Persian in Calcutta, India. He mistakenly names Kermani as the Persian translator

1961–6 Isfahani is recognized as the Persian translator

1379/2000 Publication of Modarres Sadeghi’s critical edition of The Adventures in Tehran, based on the microfilm of Isfahani’s manuscript


4. Previous scholarship on The Adventures

Scholarly work on The Adventures and its Persian translation can be divided into two groups of views expressed by Iranian and non-Iranian scholars respectively.

4.1 Iranian scholarship

Iranian scholars have exposed both the original and the translation to critical analyses. Views range from speculations about the originality of the book (Minovi 1367/1967), possibly due to Morier’s introduction to The Adventures, where he relates a story in which he bases his novel on a Persian manuscript (see below), to regarding the original as a “one-sided, prejudiced, and exaggerated picture of Persians” (Kamshad 1966, see also Nateq 1353/1974, Amanat 2003). While the majority of critics praise the translation and even consider it to be superior to the original (Emami 1372/1993, Ghanoonparvar 1996, Azarang 1381/2002), arguing that it is an example of “translation method in the classic Persian [prose]” (Kalbasi 1382/2003: 49), others criticize Morier and Isfahani, the Persian translator. For some, Morier’s book is “an Orientalist project par excellence” that serves the “reas-surance of Europe’s cultural and moral superiority and the civilizing mission of the imperial powers” (Amanat 2003, original emphasis). In the same vein, the transla-tion is seen as “the beginning of the colonial literatures” (Nateq 1353/1974: 32). Still, some see the socio-political context as a key factor for the translation in the events surrounding and leading up to the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911). However, they criticize the translator’s strategies as being affected by his political background and his exile in Turkey (Kamshad 1966, Hosseini 2006).

Against this background, Modarres Sadeghi, the second editor of the Persian translation (Tehran, 1379/2000a), takes up a different line. In the introduction to his critical edition, he draws on Morier’s argumentative “ploy” to maintain that Morier used a manuscript that he had received from a certain Hajji Baba in Tucat, Turkey, on his way home and that he had it either as the basis for his novel or his English translation. Modarres Sadeghi argues that no one except Isfahani, the Per-sian translator, gave credit to Morier’s “ploy” and that Isfahani’s purpose has been “the reconstruction and the revival of the work Morier claims his novel is based on” (1379/2000a: 21).

Rastegar (2007) has moved the critical discourse surrounding the original and the translation away from the dominant discourse outlined above. He argues that the “inter-cultural power dynamics and the construction of literary value in the social contexts of both their origin and their destination” have been largely missing in the critique of literary translations such as The Adventures (2007: 251). The critic


shows how a text like Morier’s novel has been appropriated for “both colonialist-ori-entalist as well as anti-colonialist revolutionary imaginaries” (Rastegar 2007: 251).

4.2 Non-Iranian scholarship

A group of so-called “orientalists” and British critics have collectively viewed the work within the framework of an orientalist novel. They point to the book’s enter-taining qualities as a picaresque novel (Scott & Williams 1968), its ethnographic value (Jennings 1949; Altick 1895/1954), and its educational significance for “ev-ery cultivated Englishmen” (Browne 1895: ix). For Balaÿ and Cuypers, the trans-lation is part of Iran’s Constitutional literature that “reinforces the original text” (1983: 41).15 Attempts have also been made to identity the fictional characters and their real counterparts (Grabar 1969, Moussa-Mahmoud 1969/70, Weitzman 1970) or otherwise to connect the incidents in the novel to the real world (Curzon 1895).

4.3 Textual analyses

Textual comparison of the English and Persian versions of The Adventures is lim-ited to four cases, to the best of my knowledge. Kamshad praises Isfahani’s writing style and its impact on “the awakening of the people and on bringing forth the Revolution” (1966: 26). However, he criticizes the translator for allowing his at-titude to “Iran’s religious and political establishments” (ibid.: 24) to lead to a series of alterations, additions and omissions. Kamshad’s critique is supported by one textual example in his analysis. His critique of the translator’s methods and politi-cal ideology reflects a traditional, equivalence-based approach to translation. This was the dominant approach in translation during the 1960s and afterwards in Iran (see Haddadian Moghaddam: forthcoming).

The second textual comparison by Emami (1372/1993) is based on criteria of accuracy, faithfulness and fluency, of which the translator is argued to be accom-plished in only the latter. Emami’s analysis is based on four texts: the English ver-sion, the French version (Defauconpret’s translation of 1824), and two Persian edi-tions, i.e. Phillott (1924), and Jamalzade (1348/1969), whose edited translation has been severely attacked (see Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a: 28; 1379/2000b: 71). Emami argues that Isfahani’s translation is not “accurate”, but that it remains a “successful” translation for being faithful to the “spirit of the original” (48). In ad-dition, Emami finds that the French translator mistranslates the English “courier” to “courtesan”, while Isfahani’s translation follows the English version.16 Emami once again shows the strong prevalence of the equivalence-based approach to translation in Iran. Emami’s fascination with the translator’s method urges him


to resurrect the original text instead of the translation. For Emami, Isfahani’s translation remains as successful as Edward Fitzgerald’s adaptation of The Rubai-yat of Omar Khayyam (1852), both of which “are not conforming to underlying translation principles” (Emami 1372/2003: 49).

While Rastegar (2007: 267) overlooks Emami’s study, he points out that the role of the intermediary French text remains largely unexamined (Figure 8). While the English version did not name the author and the Persian version misidentified the translator, the publisher of the French version, Haut-Coeur et Gayet Jeune, had to find another way. In the absence of the original author, the publisher gave the credit to Walter Scott (1771–1832) whose works had already been translated by the “invisible” translator, Auguste Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret. The Book was translated as Hajji Baba, traduit de l’ anglais par le traducteur des romans de Sir Walter Scott and was published in 1824 in Paris in four volumes. In addition to Emami’s study (1372/1993), Gianoroberto Scarcia makes use of the French text

Figure 7. The first page of Isfahani’s manuscript of the Persian translation of The Adven-ture of Hajji Baba of Ispahan


and points to some “general comments on the innovation of Mirza Habib’s prose” (in Rastegar 2007: 267).

My comparative analysis of the English and the Persian versions with the in-termediary French shows that the French translation is very close to the English version. In my partial analysis of the “introductory epistle” and “chapter one”, I found one case in which the translator appears to have consulted the English version. For example, “sixteen years ago” (xxii) in the English version becomes in the Persian, while the French version has [sixteen years ago] (i) شانزده سال پیشit as “soixante ans” [sixty years] (iii).17 I also found that Isfahani does not follow the English or the French in a number of places.18 A thorough analysis of the three translations of the novel will shed light on the role of the intermediary French and will provide strong evidence for whether Isfahani worked from French or English.

In the third textual analysis, Kalbasi compares the English and Isfahani’s ver-sion, and provides some stylistic features of Isfahani’s other translation, Gil Blas de

Figure 8. The title page of Auguste Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret’s translation of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan in 1824, plus an engraving of the story. The caption reads: “Hajji Baba thinks fraud does not always go unpunished”. This copy of the book was found in a shop in Barcelona, Spain and bought for €27. The name of Morier is missing.


Santillane, concluding that his translation method reminds us of “the classic Per-sian [prose]” which is understood to be contrary to the highly ornamented style of the Qajars (1382/2003: 49). By classic Persian prose, Kalbasi means the works of Abul-Fazl Beyhaghi, the Persian historian and author of the eleventh century, and Saadi, the Persian poet of the thirteen century whose works are representatives of a more colloquial, accessible prose. The critic names Nasrollah Monshi’s Persian translation of Kalile wa Dimnah in the twelfth century, from the Indian fables of Pañcatantra, as an example of the above mentioned translation method (Kalbasi 1382/2003: 49).19 Kalbasi shows awareness of target-oriented approaches to trans-lation, denouncing, on the one hand, the “ornamented” prose style of the Qajar period, of which Isfahani showed his strong dislike, and on the other, implicitly calling on Iranian literary translators to be aware of what he calls “their historical role”. In other words, he invites the Iranian translators to welcome a more target-oriented approach as opposed to a more literal, source-oriented one, arguably more observable in today’s practice of literary translation in Iran.

Finally, Hosseini (2006) compares Isfahani’s translation of The Adventures with that of Afshar published in 1376/1997 (Morier 1824b) in an attempt to argue that the former is an example of “colonial translation”. Hosseini see the translator’s strategies as being influenced by his colonial position, amounting to advocacy of western culture. The second translation, on the other hand, is argued to be an example of “post-colonial” translation. His critique sidelines the fact that Iran has never been a colonial state, nor do Afshar’s “faithful” translation strategies have much to do with his position in post-Revolution Iran.

The studies discussed, except for Rastegar (2007), show little interest in the movement and displacement of the agents, and they do not attempt to move be-yond the constraints of narrow nationalistic genre categories, such as oriental, colonial or post-colonial. As mentioned above, with the growing interest in the sociology of translation and with respect to Pym’s call for attention to the “mate-rial movement of people” (2009: 152), I approached The Adventures by examining the movement of both the English and Persian texts and the translation agents beyond physical borders.

5. Translation analysis of The Adventures

With no attempt to present the full analysis of the Persian translation, my aim is to examine the translator’s main interventions by arguing that for Isfahani the ethics of political progress was higher than the ethics of fidelity to the foreign text as one way of exercising his agency in exile. For the ease of study, I borrow Kamshad’s categories (1966) in his review of The Adventures in order to proceed with the


analysis. I divide these categories into two groups: additions and amplification of the meaning, and flamboyant descriptions and omissions. To save space, I provide only a few examples for each category. The Persian translation is from Phillott (1905), and the English from Morier (1902).

5.1 Additions and the amplification of meaning

The additional texts appear in bold in the Persian version followed by a gloss in English.

(1) Hajji’s first impression of Constantinople: And when I saw the riches displayed in the shops, the magnificence of dress

of almost every inhabitant, and the constant succession of great lords and agas, riding about on the finest and most richly caparisoned horses, I could not help exclaiming, in a secret whisper to myself, “Where is Constantinople and her splendours, and where is Persia and her poverty?” (391)

چون امتعه و اقشمه دکانها و مغازه ها و دبدبه و طنطنه پاشایان و افندیان استانبول را، با آن خدم و حشم و اسب وعرابه و زیب و زینت دیدم، باد غرور ایرانیم فروکش کرده آهسته با خودم گفتم ما کجا و اینان کجا؟ اگر اینجا جاست، پس ایران کجاست؟ اینجا دارالنعیم

است، آنجا دارالجحیم: اینجا دارالصفا، آنجا دارالعزا: اینجا عزت است و گنج، آنجا ذلت و رنج: اینجا سلطنت است و نظافت، آنجا درویش و کثافت: اینجا تماشا خانه، آنجا تکیه

خانه: اینجا بازی، آنجا شبیه: اینجا عیش، آنجا تعزیه: اینجا آوازه، آنجا روضه. خوش گذرانی و عیش و نوش ترکان با آن عزاداری شبانه روز ایرانیان را بخاطر آورده بر بخت بد

گریستم. (397)

If this is a place, then what is Persia? This is heaven, Persia is hell. This is a pleasant house, that is a mourning house, here I find honor and treasure, there degradation and suffering; here governance and cleanliness, there dervishes and dirt; here the theater, there takiyeh [a place for public mourning]; here a game, there shabih [one type of tazieyh, a religious drama]; here the life of pleasure, there taziyeh; here song, there ruzeh [a sermon recalling the tragedies of Karbala]. Remembering the Ottomans’ life of pleasure and Persians’round-the-clock life of mourning, I decried my bad luck [at having born in Persia].

In this first example, the translator adds a lengthy, comparative description of Iran’s political, social and cultural situation with that of Constantinople. While the former is pictured void of any order and happiness, seen in the original as one of the basic characteristics of Persia in the 18th century in which the story is happen-ing the description of the latter invokes a world without poverty.


(2) Hajji’s Baba is changing his profession: Still I might have followed my own profession, and have taken a shop; but I

could not bear the thoughts of settling, particularly in so remote a town like Meshed. (47)

خواستم روضه خوانی و تعزیه گردان شوم دیدم در این کار بیحیایی بیشتر الزم است. خواستم واعظ شوم، دیدم که احادیث و اخبار باید جعل کنم و عربی نمیدانستم. خواستم

فال گیر شوم فالگیر و رمال در مشهد از سگ بیشتر است و همان میخورند که مرغ خانگی میخورد. خواستم باز دالک شوم دیدم که پابند میشوم و مشهد جای ماندن نیست. (66–65)

I wanted to recite incidents and to direct the passion play of Imam Hosein, but I noticed it required more shamefulness. I wanted to become a preacher, but I noticed it required the fabrication of hadiths (sayings) and news and I did not know Arabic. I wanted to become a fortune-teller, but I found out there were more fortune-tellers in Mashhad than dogs, and they ate what the hen ate.

In this second example, the translator’s addition presents Hajji Baba’s contempt of certain fraudulent professions of the time who misuse people’s religious beliefs. Among these groups, the professions of the reciter, the religious dramatist, and the preacher are rooted in Islamic religion, hence the translator’s criticism of their hypocrisy. Mashhad, a religious city in Iran, has historically attracted pilgrims, making it a popular destination for fortune-tellers to extract money from simple-hearted pilgrims. Isfahani’s addition makes it possible to read the translation as being politically oriented.

(3) Hajji Baba on his profession as an executioner: I made use of my stick so freely upon the heads and backs of the crowd, that

my brother executioners quite stared, and wondered what demon they had got amongst them. (168)

چنان بی محابا و بی تحاشی چماق بسر و مغز مردم می نواختم که نسقچیان میگفتند »عجب ولد الزنایی بزمره ما داخل شده.« (149)

In the last example, the English word, “demon” is translated as ولد الزنا, originally an Arabic adjective meaning “bastard”. While the English “demon” could have been translated literally, one might assume that the translator has amplified the meaning to evoke unpleasant associations with the officials in the reader's mind. The translator has also modified “executioners” to نسقچیان, roughly the equivalent of “police”, but at the time it would have meant any of the king’s servants. Instead of “backs” in the original, we have مغز (brain) in Persian, possibly because the use of “stick” (چماق) as a corporal tool in Persian is usually associated with the head .(مغز) and the brain (سر)


5.2 Flamboyant descriptions and omission

In the following example, Hajji has decided to be a “true Musslmun” seeking ad-vice from Molla Nadan, a clergyman. The additions are printed in bold in Persian:

In short, I may be called a living Koran. None pray more regularly than I. No one goes to the bath more scrupulously, nor abstains more rigidly from everything that is counted unclean. You will find neither silk in my dress, nor gold on my fingers. My ablutions are esteemed the most complete of any man’s in the capital, and the mode of my abstersion the most in use. I neither smoke nor drink wine before men; neither do I play at chess, at gengifeh (cards), or any game which, as the law ordains, abstracts the mind from holy meditation. I am esteemed the model of fasters; and during the Ramazan give no quarter to the many hungry fellows who come to me under various pretexts, to beg a remission of the strictness of the law. “No”, do I say to them, “die rather than eat, or drink, or smoke. Do like me, who, rather than abate one title of the sacred ordinance, would manage to exist from Jumah to Jumah (Friday) without polluting my lips with unlawful food”. (321)

اوال بدانکه من عماد االسالم و قدوه االنام، نخبه ملت حنیف و شرع شریف، انموذج دین محمدی و ملت محمدیم. اجتهادم بهمه جاری، و فتاوی و احکامم بهمه ساری است.

شاربین خمر را حد میزنم: زانیان محصنه را رجم می کنم. در امر معروف و نهی از منکر و تالیف قلوب، و موعظه و خطابت، وحید و فریدم. حامی بیضه اسالم و راهنمای خواص و عوامم: آیت صائم النهار؛ معنی قائم اللیل. غسل و وضویم عبره للناظرین؛ و صوم و صلواتم

اسوه للسایرین است. بحکم اجتهاد خود، از استعمال االت و آوانی مفضض و مطال محترزم، و از اکتسای کسوه اقشمه و حریر مجتنب: مواظب تعبد، ملتزم تجهدم. از قلیان و انفیه

متنفرم، و بازی نرد و گنجیفه و شطرنج و سایر مالعب و مالهی را منکر؛ چه این گونه مناهی و مکاره مضر آداب دیانت و مشتغل اوقات طاعت و عبادت است. پارۂ اجامره و اوباش و رنود در باب تخفیف تکالیف روزه از قبیل تجویز قلیان کشیدن و مصطکی خائیدن از من

استفا نمودند؛ اما از من بجز جواب ال چیزی نشنوند. سرشان را با عصای ال شکستم که روزه خوردن )دور از جناب( گه خوردن است؛ و باید روزه را گرفت و نماز را کرد تا چشمتان کور

شود. اگر شارع مقدس حکم فرموده بود که مدت افطار یک هفته باید باشد، هر آئینه اولین روزه گیر و آخرین روزه گشا من می بودم؛ و حاشا و کال اگر دهان بال و لعل میگشودم. (330)

The Persian translation is typical of the language of the clergymen of the Safavid and Qajar period, and also of the Persian ornamental prose style, laden with nu-merous Arabic terms and concepts. Table 2 provides a comparison of the English and Persian segments. The italics in the English version have been omitted in the Persian version, while the bold in the Persian have been added to provide a flam-boyant description of mainly Islamic rules. For example, the adjectives used to describe Molla Nadan in Persian in the first line are as follows: عماد االسالم (the pillar of Islam); قدوه االنام (the leader of people); نخبه ملت حنیف و شرع شریف (the


chosen of the nation of Ibrahim and the Shariah); انموذج دین محمدی و ملت محمدی (an example of Mohammad’s religion and nation). Molla Nadan’s responsibility is also extended to include the prescribed punishment for those who have commit-ted adultery with married women, or for those who have drunk wine. Segment 1 is not translated; segment 4 is partially understood to be implicitly present in segment 3 in Persian. The omissions include “on my fingers” (6), “nor drink wine before men” (8), and “many hungry fellows” (11). In the original, the author talks of using gold on fingers, but the translator extends it to the general use of golden and silver utensils. “Wine” is omitted and substituted with انفیه (snuff) and the

Table 2. The English and the Persian segments described in 5.2

English Persian1. In short, I may be called a living Koran –2. None pray more regularly than I قائم اللیل3. No one goes to the bath more scrupulously غسل و وضویم عبره للناظرین4. nor abstains more rigidly from everything

that is counted unclean–

5. You will find neither silk in my dress از اکتسای کسوه اقشمه و حریر مجتنب6. nor gold on my fingers از استعمال االت و آوانی مفضض و مطال محترزم7. My ablutions are esteemed the most com-

plete of any man’s in the capitalغسل و وضویم عبره للناظرین

8. I neither smoke nor drink wine before men از قلیان و انفیه متنفرم9. neither do I play at chess, at gengifeh

(cards), or any game which, as the law ordains, abstracts the mind from holy meditation [italics original]

و بازی نرد و گنجیفه و شطرنج و سایر مالعب و مالهی را منکر چه این گونه مناهی و مکاره مضر آداب

دیانت و مشتغل اوقات طاعت و عبادت است

10. I am esteemed the model of fasters غسل و وضویم عبره للناظرین11. and during the Ramazan give no quarter

to the many hungry fellows who come to me under various pretexts, to beg a remis-sion of the strictness of the law

پارۂ اجامره و اوباش و رنود در باب تخفیف تکالیف روزه از قبیل تجویز قلیان کشیدن و مصطکی خائیدن از

من استفا نمودند؛

12. “No”, do say to them, “die rather than eat, or drink, or smoke. Do like me, who, rather than abate one title of the sacred ordinance, would manage to exist from Jumah to Jumah (Friday) without pollut-ing my lips with unlawful food’ ” [italics original].

اما از من بجز جواب ال چیزی نشنوند. سرشان را با عصای ال شکستم که روزه خوردن )دور از جناب( گه

خوردن است؛ و باید روزه را گرفت و نماز را کرد تا چشمتان کور شود. اگر شارع مقدس حکم فرموده بود که مدت افطار یک هفته باید باشد، هر آئینه اولین روزه گیر و آخرین روزه گشا من می بودم؛ و حاشا و کال اگر

دهان بال و لعل میگشودم.


verb is changed to متنفرم (I dislike). In segment 8, the translator has substituted “many hungry fellows” with پارۂ اجامره و اوباش و رنود (a group of hooligans, thugs and the sly). In segment 3, the English phrase talks of going to bath, while the translator’s explicitation غسل و وضویم عبره للناظرین can be back-translated as “my ritual immersion of the body in the water and ablution are lessons for observers.”

6. Discussion

Based on the above examples, we can draw some inferences about Isfahani and his translation of The Adventures. Although the paratext of the Persian translation (1905) implies, in a couplet, that the translator has attempted to remain faithful to the source text (see Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a: 15), the various translation strategies suggest otherwise. In his much quoted introduction to the translation, Isfahani, being a poet, explicitly argues that he has reproduced the original in Per-sian. I reproduce the Persian couplet and its literal back translation into English here: من نه این از جیب و انبان گفته ام آنچه را گوینده گفت، آن گفته ام [I have not said this translation out of my pocket or leather bag, rather, I have said what the au-thor has said].20 This should not necessarily be taken to imply that Isfahani has been a “colonial” translator (Hosseini 2006) or an “inaccurate” translator (Emami 1372/1993). The fact remains that he uses accurate translation to such an extent that the translation arguably surpasses the original with regard to prose style, as testified by a number of studies (Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a, Kalbasi 1382/2003, Azarang 1381/2002).21 These critics collectively praise the translator’s stylistics skills and his mastery in reproducing the right tone for different characters.

Given Isfahani’s exilic situation, the function of the foreign text took prece-dence over equivalence, that is, he opted for a translation method that allowed him to amplify the meaning, intensify the corruption of the ruling class, and the rampant poverty and religious demagoguery of the time in Persia. In other words, he had a translation method and then used additions and deletions for politi-cal purposes. I assume he hoped to arouse Iranian readers against the Qajars, a purpose which was arguably fulfilled: “Isfahani uses Hajji Baba’s text for polemical purposes against the Qajars’ dynasty and the Persian society, frozen in its tradi-tions and stiff conservatism” (Balaÿ and Cuypers 1983: 41).

Some of the studies listed above (Kalbasi 1382/2003; see also Razavi 1389/2010) welcome the translator’s empowering strategies and see it as being consistent with classical Persian translation tradition, while others (Kamshad 1966, Nateq 1353/1973, Emami 1372/1993) argue otherwise, failing to see the larger context or the translatory action at work, to borrow Holz-Mänttäri’s term (1981). For Is-fahani, a translator in exile, adopting a political skopos was possibly the only way


he could exercise his agency, which was already threatened by Iran’s ruling sys-tem. This does not rule out the ethical issues at a time when he was practicing his agency in exile; when the despotic Qajars would not expect his agency to be any-thing but total subservience to their ruling. His agency was exilic, liberating and the same time traveling. Although he never saw his published translation, nor was credited for a long time as the translator, his work and agency never ceased to exist across physical and academic borders. It is here that the role of Kermani as a cross-border translation agent becomes essential. His risky cross-bordering agency facil-itated the exilic agency of Isfahani to reach another cross-border translation agent, namely Phillott. From the execution of Kermani in 1896 to the publication of 1905 of The Adventures, from the death of Isfahani in 1893 to his translatorial resurrec-tion of 1961–1966, the agency under study has been traveling and multifaceted.

The ongoing debates about this Persian translation show that it has been suc-cessful in providing a translation model for later Persian translators. Though the translation is not a very faithful translation in its general sense, it is instructive in liberating the Persian language from the ornamental prose of the Qajar period, and it shows how Isfahani conceived of a more general readership for the transla-tion beyond the limited readership of the Qajar’s court and the literate. When Modarres Sadeghi called Isfahani’s translation “the first attempt of writing an Ira-nian novel” (1379/2000a: 40), he probably wanted to highlight the translator’s role in exercising his agency in challenging the ornamental prose.22

Isfahani’s so-called “inaccurate translation” has also challenged a retranslation, wrongly called a “post-colonial” translation (Hosseini 2006), which has hardly re-ceived any critical study. The retranslation of The Adventures by Afshar (Morier 1824b) is an example of a strongly literal approach which has been heavily criti-cized over the past decade (see e.g. Khazaeefar 1379/2000). There have been recent calls in Iran for a return to a more accessible, fluent Persian prose, of which Isfahani remains a unique case. This line of interest, which has frequently been discussed without being substantially investigated or problematized using the real transla-tions, is generally called a “translation movement” or “translation tradition” in Iran. If “tradition” in its literal meaning refers to an “inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior” (Webster Online Dictionary), Isfahani’s translation remains one “action” or key text among others for analysis. Awaiting a comprehensive history of translation of contemporary Iran (see Meisami 1991: 45), case studies of early translations and their agents, their interculturality and atten-tion to the larger networks at work during the Qajar dynasty may help us better un-derstand the so-called “Persian [translation] tradition” (see Karimi-Hakkak 2001).


7. Conclusion

This case study has addressed the issue of agency and translation agents from the point of view of movement of both texts and people beyond physical borders. The case study focused on the translation and production of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan into Persian and set out to explore the agency of the Per-sian translator and two other translation agents, hoping to move away from the dominant discourse of “colonialist-orientalist” and “anti-colonialist revolutionary imaginaries” surrounding both texts. The study drew on a rich collection of his-torical data, and the textual analysis of the translation.

It has shown that the concept of agency far exceeds the boundaries of textual, paratextual and extratextual borders and it can be misattributed for multiple rea-sons, and that, in spite of the illusory, disempowering nature of exile, translation agents are capable of exercising, transferring, and risking their agency within in-tercultural transfers. On the textual level, the case study exemplified how Isfahani exercised his exilic agency and conceived of a higher political progress than the ethics of fidelity to foreign text, brought innovation to the dominant ornamental Persian prose style, and conceived of a more general readership beyond the Per-sian elite. His translation likewise remains essential for the historiography of the Persian tradition of translation in the early of the 20th century. My analysis also allowed me to propose the concept of pro-risk translation agents (both Isfahani and Kermani) and traveling agency as two fresh ways of looking at agency and charting the historical movements of translation agents in TS. I also think that the metaphor of traveling agency helps us conceive of agency as a property that can be symbolically activated beyond an agent’s lifetime.

Further research in a number of areas is conceivable. One is an explanatory case study of the historical documents available across England, Turkey, Iran and India, attempting to explore the discursive practices of translation agents and the strategies they used to maintain their “professional intercultures”. In the same vein, various networks of translation agents across the above countries have been at work during the 19th century under different patronage, and they deserve to be explored and charted. For instance, the prominent and underresearched role of Major Phillott and The Asiatic Society, Calcutta, India, in intercultural transfers between England, Iran and India, and his incipient role as the chief censor in Cairo and Port Said in the early of 20th century in Egypt can have great potential for TS.23

Acknowledgments

The initial ideas for this paper were presented at The Third Asian Translation Traditions


Conference (22–24 October 2008, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul). I am indebted to the person-nel of the library of Högskolan Dalarna, Falun, Sweden, for providing various rare copies of Morier’s and Phillott’s works. Anthony Pym has shown great interest in my research by pro-viding valuable comments. Christiane Nord’s comments were also helpful in the initial stages of the research. Hedley Sutton from The British Library, and Richard Dawkins from Felsted School, Essex, England have been responsive to my queries about Douglas Craven Phillott. Ja-faar Modarres Sadeghi sent me part of Isfahani’s manuscript of the Persian translation of The Adventures and responded to my various questions. S. Bakhash and M. J. Yahaghi both sent me copies of Nateq’s article (1353/1974). My sincerely thanks go to all of them.

Notes

1. Before 1935, Iran was known as Persia, the Greek name for Iran. The change came after Reza Shah, the first king of the Pahlavi Dynasty (1925–1979) asked foreigners to use the indigenous name of Iran. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the official name of the country changed to Islamic Republic of Iran, however, many Iranians call the country simply Iran, and themselves either Persians or Iranians, the former reflecting their cultural heritage. We have no knowledge of the poem Isfahani composed in which Mohammad Khan Sepahsalar, the prime minister of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajar king, was arguably satirized. An interesting account of the prime minister is given by Saadat Noori (1345/1966). Isfahani himself has written a short biography in his introduction to his still unpublished “Divan”, i.e. the collection of his poems. This manu-script is said to be in Beyazit Devlet Kütüphanesi [the state library of Beyazit] in Istanbul. In part of it, we read: “In there [Tehran], they [the Persian authorities] decided to arrest and harass [me] on the false accusation of satirizing Sepahsalar Mohammad Khan, the prime Minister” (see Afshar 1339/1960: 492–3).

2. For the English version, see the reference for Morier 1824a. For the French version see Mor-ier 1824c.

3. See the reference for Morier 1824b and Phillott 1905.

4. Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) and his “thinking tools” have been discussed in many of the studies that deal with translation as a social action. The interest grew out of the special issue of The Translator in 2005, 11(2), entitled “Bourdieu and the sociology of translation and inter-preting”. Two works that discuss and problematize this approach are Pym et al., Sociocultural Aspects of Translating and Interpreting (2006); and Wolf ’s and Fukari’s Constructing a Sociology of Translation (2007). Other sociological approaches in the study of translation are Niklas Luh-man’s social system theory and Bruno Latour’s network theory.

5. Morier, James. 1812. A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809 in which is included, some Account of the Proceeding of His Majesty’s Mission, Under the Harford Jones, Bart K.C. to the Court of the King of Persia. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown; Morier, James. 1818. A Second Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the Years 1810 and 1816: With a Journal of the Voy-age by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown. Both books have been reprinted and are available online.


6. In quoting from Persian resources, I refer to the original date of publication using the Iranian Solar Hejri calendar, followed by its equivalent Christian date. Records of the 19th and early 20th centuries use lunar Hejira calendar.

7. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 brought together a collective uprising against the Qajar dynasty in Persia (1795–1925). The establishment of parliament and the constitutional monarchy were two of its immediate results (see Browne 1995).

8. For more on the book, see Armaghan 1308/1929, Afshar 1339/1960.

9. For a list of Isfahani’s works, see Afshar 1339/1960: 495, Modarres Sadeghi 1379/2000a; for his translation of Le Misanthrope, see Sanjabi 1998; for various versions of Gil Blas in Persian, see Azarang 1381/2002: 38–39. For a review of Isfahani’s translation of Gil Blas into Persian, see Emami 1378/2000.

10. The account of the execution as reported by Phillott (1905: v) runs as follows: “A wire from Tehran to Tabriz and the two suspects were secretly butchered in a kitchen, in the presence of the Governor, who — so it is said — while superintending the execution was moved to tears. The butchery was carried out on the 4th, of Safar (A. D. 1896 about), A.H. 1314. The bodies were afterwards thrown into a well”.

11. It is not exactly clear what censor Kermani is talking about here, however, we can assume it should be the censor of the press which was prevalent during the period of Abdüllhamit II (1876–1908) in the Ottoman territory (see Demircioğlu 2009: 138).

12. In 1895, when Brown wrote his introduction to Morier’s novel, he translated Kermani’s let-ter into English. In it, Isfahani was recognized as the Persian translator of The Adventures from French. This remained unknown until Kamshad in his study (1966: 23) reproduced a facsimile of Kermani’s letter to Browne. Disagreement exists among Iranian scholars who claim to iden-tify Isfahani as the translator. While Kamshad’s claim is based on Kermani’s letter, others look at Isfahani’s manuscript. Minovi is probably the only Iranian who has actually seen Isfahani’s manuscript in 1961 in the library of the University of Istanbul, numbered F. 266. Despite various attempts, I have not yet been able to examine it closely. Minovi is said to have given a microfilm of the manuscript to the library of University of Tehran, numbered 3603. Modarres Sadeghi’s critical edition (1379/2000a) was checked against this microfilm. Jamalzadeh (1362/1983: 673), the Iranian author, covers Minovi’s discovery of 1961 of Isfahani’s manuscript, quoting from Minovi’s letters. However, it is not clear why Jamalzadeh claims the credit (1348/1969, and 1362/1983). Kamshad (2010: unpaginated) has recently argued that he informed Jamalzadeh about the discovery and did not think of the credit as he was “young, inattentive and these things did not matter” to him at the time. Interestingly enough, Afshar (1339/1960) does not mention Minovi’s discovery and gives the credit to Jamalzadeh (Afshar 1342/1963).

13. I am thankful to Anthony Pym for bringing this to my attention while he was working for his article, “On inculturation”; see Pym 2011.

14. In his introduction to the 1905 edition of The Adventures, Phillott argues that Kermani him-self sent the copy to Persia: “The present edition is printed from a MS. copied from, and again collated with, the original MS. that the translator sent to his native town, and is published with the permission of his heirs” (ix–x). Researchers have shown little interest in the fact that Phillott based his edition on two copies, one being the MS. in circulation in Iran, and one being the


MS. copy in Kermani’s handwriting. The latter may be the same that was found in Kermani’s belongings after his execution. To this date, we have no knowledge of the possible existence of these manuscripts either in Iran or in India. Contacts in Iran have not been also able to lo-cate any descendants of Kermani in Kerman. For a description of the British Consulate and its founding in Kerman, see chapter XV in Skyes (1902).

15. The quotations from Balaÿ and Michel Cuypers (1983) are my translations from the French and the Persian versions.

16. Emami suspects that Isfahani’s correct translation might be due to his knowledge of the Persian setting of the story. Emami assumes that it is possible to conceive of Isfahani translating from English or even Turkish, however, he advises us not to disregard other “evidences” (Emami 1372/1993: 40).

17. Interestingly enough, in Isfahani’s manuscript, Isfahani follows the French and not the Eng-lish. This shows that the copy that formed Phillott’s 1905 edition might have had minor differ-ences with Isfahani’s manuscript. We know that Phillott’s edition is based on Kermani’s copy of Isfahani’s manuscript, and Kermani might have taken the liberty of partial intervention in the translation.

18. The English is from Morier (1824a), the French is from Morier (1824c), and the Persian from Phillott (1905). Table 3 below shows that Isfahani follows neither the English nor the French

Table 3. Examples of the cases in which Isfahani follows neither the English nor the French versions

English French Persian

Twenty years’ industry (13) vingt années (39) سی سال کاسبی[thirty years of business] (1)

Peregrine Persic, London, 1st December, 1823 (12)

Peregrine Persie, Londres, le 1er décembre 1823 (xxxviii)

سیاح انگلیسی سنه 1828[The English traveler, the year of 1828] (xviii)

Rev. Dr. Fundgruben (1) Au révérend docteur Fundgru-ben (v)

سیاحی انگلیسی[an English traveler] (i)

Our sacred history (3) notre histoire sacrée (xiii) عبارت انجیل[an expression from the Bible] (19)

19. For a comparative study of the Arabic, Persian and Indian versions of the translation, see Heydari 1386–1387/2007.

20. Apart from fragmentary poems published in Persian, a sample of Isfahani’s poetry in French entitled “Remercîment pour le repas”, was published in 1889, on the occasion of the Eight International Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm (see Ayandeh: 1359/1980: 299–303).

21. For example, when the king’s physician is describing the Europeans to Hajji Baba on page 93 in the original, and page 120 in the Persian translation; see also pages 167/144 and 177/203.

22. See also Modarres Sadeghi’s interviews (1379/2000b, 1384/2005) about his work on Isfah-ani’s manuscript.


23. In ongoing research, I am looking at Phillott’s editorial and translatorial voice in the 1905 edition of The Adventures in Persian.

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Author’s address

Esmaeil Haddadian MoghaddamIntercultural Studies GroupDepartament d’Estudis Anglesos i AlemanysUniversitat Rovira i VirgiliAvda.Catalunya 3543002 TarragonaSpain

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Documents

Agency in the translation and production of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan into Persian