Elimam (Ahmed S.) & Fletcher (Alysia S.), The Qur’an, Translation and the Media: A Narrative Account, London, Routledge, ("Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies"), 2021, 210 p. ISBN 9781003155232

Authors

Ahmed S. Elimam lectures in Translation Studies at the University of Leicester. His recent publications include: Translating Word Order Variations in the Qur’an: A Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment (2020), Muslim Scholars as Self-Translators (2019) and Media, Translation and the Construction of the Muslim Image: A Narrative Perspective (2019).

Alysia S. Fletcher is a professional translator and interpreter and holds an MA degree in translation. She studied Italian and Spanish Translation and Interpreting Studies at Universities in the UK and Spain. She also worked as a translator in Milan, and is the founder and owner of ASF Translations.

Presentation

This book aims to identify how the Qur’an is narrated in and by the press media through the use of translation, featuring examples from a corpus of newspaper articles from the UK and Europe across two decades.

Drawing on work at the intersection of narrative theory and translation studies, the volume highlights the ways in which press media play an integral role in the construction, promotion, and circulation of narratives about events and communities, shedding light specifically on translations of Qur’anic verses across British, Italian, and Spanish newspapers between 2001 and 2019. Elimam and Fletcher examine how such translations have been used to create and disseminate narratives about the Qur’an and in turn, Islam and Muslims, unpacking the kinds of narratives evoked – personal, public, conceptual, and meta-narratives – and narrative strategies employed – selective appropriation, temporality, causal emplotment, and relationality – toward framing readers’ understanding of the Qur’an.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Translating the Qur’an in the Press Media

Chapter 2: Narrative Theory and Methodology

Chapter 3: British Press Media Coverage of Islam

Chapter 4: Italian Press Media Coverage of Islam

Chapter 5: Spanish Press Media Coverage of Islam

Chapter 6: Discussion: Popular Narratives and Narrative Tools

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Appendix I: list of English translation of verses per newspaper

Appendix II: list of Italian translation of verses per newspaper

Appendix III: list of Spanish translation of verses per newspaper

Index