Translators and Interpreters in Iraq War Literature

“Translators and Interpreters in Iraq War Literature” looks at texts written about the Iraq War that focus on the role of translation and the figure of the translator. Taking a comparative approach to global Iraq War literature, this dissertation focuses on texts that exceed the boundaries of nationally- or linguistically-based categories of literature and operate as “translational” texts that undermine the binary between translation and original. The project shows the ways in which translation acts as a vehicle for addressing gendered, racial, and political forms of marginalization faced by women in the military, interpreters working with the US, and Iraqi writers. The dissertation highlights noncombatants whose work has been neglected from critical studies of Iraq War literature and shows the ways texts about the Iraq War perform translation and thematize its increased and varying uses in warfare. The first chapter illustrates the critical role of translation in waging the Iraq War. The second chapter analyzes In‘ām Kachachī’s Al-ḥafīda al-amīrikiyya (The American Granddaughter), Nafisa Haji’s The Sweetness of Tears, and Mahmoud Saeed’s “Must‘amarat al-‘aẓā’āt (“Lizards’ Colony”),” which all feature women interpreter protagonists. It argues that the texts use translation as a literal and figurative battleground on which to explore the struggles of individual interpreters, the politics of translation, and the manipulative logic of the invasion. The third chapter focuses specifically on the local (Iraqi) interpreter in Shākir Nūrī’s Al-minṭaqa al-khaḍrā’ (The Green Zone); it engages the ways interpreters highlight anxieties in the US forces around space, language, and religious radicalization. The fourth chapter reads the blogs of Riverbend and Salam Pax as sites of cultural translation.Doctor of Philosoph