User:U21102687/Taha Mahmoud Taha

Article name is... Taha Mahmoud Taha

 Taha Mahmoud Taha 

(1929-16 April 2002) is a university professor and Egyptian translator, one of his most famous works translating  the novel Ulis by James Joyce

 Brief Biography: 

Taha Mahmoud Taha was born in 1929 and enrolled after high school at Ain Shams University Faculty of Arts, where he graduated with Ain Ma'ada.

After receiving his master's degree in 1957 he joined  Dublin University in Ireland and received his  PhD on Aldous Huxley, Taha had been writing since 1955, he returned back to Cairo in February 1961 as a faculty of Arts, at Ain Shams University, but he did not spend much in the position he  left the university and devoted himself to translation in 1966, and then returned to the university when he contracted with Kuwait University as a professor. As an assistant to modern English literature,[1] he worked in Kuwait for during which he finished the James Joyce Encyclopedia, published with the support of the University in 1974. Dr. Taha worked as a teacher at King Saud University  in  Riyadh from 1961 to 1963.

 His interest in James Joyce’s literature[عدل] 

On the beginning of Taha’s interest in James Joyce’s literature, he says in the introduction to the book “The Encyclopedia of James Joyce” (1974): In recognition of the professor’s thanks, Taha put him – 20 years later – in the introduction to the James Joyce Encyclopedia, based on him, when he said: “To those who taught me to read James Joyce: Professor David Peter Edgle.”

Translation of the novel “Ulis”عدل]

Taha’s translation of the first edition of James Joyce’s Ulis novel was published in 1982, and Taha began translating it in 1964, and the fourth chapter was published in the magazine “The Writer” in May 1964, entitled “45 Minutes in Mr. Bloom’s life, with an introduction and an explanation of the text, followed by the publication of a translation of chapter 10, “The Little Maze in Ulis” in the magazine, which was headed by Yahya Haqqi  in November 1965, and by 1978 Taha had finished translating each Chapters of the novel, to lead the translation of the entire novel into Arabic for the first time in 1982.

About taha’s difficulty in translating Ulis, he says:

Taha tried to develop an innovative translation worthy of the great literary work in which he combined the spirit and text of the novel, translating each English single in Arabic, and every old English word with the closest word interviewed to it in ancient Arabic, beginning with the title of the novel, which became in Arabic “Ulis”. He tried to translate every slang word in an interview slang, such as his use of “Aden al-Balad” opposite Edenville, every English proverb with an Arabic proverb and a children’s song in English with an Arabic children’s  song,  and translated English slang poems into Arabic slang poems as much as possible, such as “I am the attar boy/wearing a lightness cap”.

Taha tried also to carve Arabic words against the words that Joyce carved in English, using words such as “stand up” and “tamzer” or write them in a special way to give them more inspiration, such as “chewing” with “eyes” and “eyelids” Years after the translation was published, Dr. Taha issued a dictionary of the novel’s vocabulary, and Taha chose to keep sentences written in a non-English language in her native languages; Arabic.

Taha was nominated for the State Appreciation Award for this work, but he did not receive it, explaining that “the committee charged with awarding the award did not have time to read the novel, and perhaps diving into Ulis needed titan divers who understood its great mysteries and its great end”.

Because of Taha’s great efforts to transfer Joyce’s heritage to Arabic, he was a member of the James Joyce Society, an association that includes those interested in Joyce’s literature and those involved in his work and publishes a quarterly magazine dealing with the discoveries of his rich works. The association organizes a meeting of members every two years on June 16 each year (the day Joyce chose to write his novel Ulis, which takes place throughout June 16, 1904).

His Writings[عدل]

-       The Story in English Literature: From Beowulf  to Finneganswick (National House of Printing and Publishing, Cairo): Completed between 1962 and 1964, it presents the history of the story in English literature from Beowulf to James Joyce’s Finneganzwicknovel.

-       The Sciences of the Novel in the 20th Century (1966): Five of the western novel’s sciences were examined: Edward Morgan Forster, Virginia Wolf, David Herbert Lawrence, Joseph Conrad and Aldous Huxley.

-       James Joyce Encyclopedia (1974): It took seven years to collect and write her material, which ended in the summer of 1973.

Taha’s Translations[edit:

1.     James Joyce’s Ulis Novel (1982): Published by the Arab Center for Research and Publishing on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s birth,[1]  in 1382 pages, with two volumes equal in size,[5] the first edition was published only 500 copies,[4] and a second revised edition of The Arabic House was published in 1994.

2.     Wake up Finnegan: James Joyce’s latest novel, was supposed to be published by the Arab Publishing House in Cairo, but Taha died before it was published.

3.     Robot Drawings: A play by Czechoslovak writer  Carl Chapek.

 Taha’s Death[edit] 

Dr. Taha Mahmoud died on Tuesday 16th April 2002.