Comparison of Negiub Mahfouz’s Miramar Novel Translations

Abstract

Humanity has given great importance to literature and has used literature for the benefit of humankind. One of the societies that attach importance to literature is Egypt. Egyptian Necip Mahfouz was one of those who promoted his country in the field of literature and received the Nobel Prize in literature. One of the author's leading symbolic novels is Miramar. In this novel, the author describes Egypt in the 1960s. Miramar is the name of a hostel in Alexandria, Egypt. The Miramar hostel describes six various characters in a way that could be a metaphor for a country. Mahfouz gives us the psychology of the Egyptian people through these characters. And he became more well-known after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. The author's works have also been translated into our country. In this study, comparisons of the author's novel Miramar will be examined regarding translation equivalence and non-equivalence. Ten translated passages from the author's book will be given comparatively. While the author's novels are generally translated into Turkish, they are made in English, the intermediate language. Since these translations are translated from the intermediate language to the target language, Turkish, there is a significant loss of meaning,preventing, the aesthetic enjoyment of the text. In order to get aesthetic pleasure from the translations, they must be translated properly from the source language to the target language.