Tintin in the Arab world and Arabic in the world of Tintin

Abstract

"My purpose is not to make gratuitous assumptions about the political intentions of Dar al-Maarif, or reveal any sinister agenda behind (self-)censorship trends among Egyptian publishers. Rather, it is to show how the editorial choices in the Arabic translations of Tintin’s stories—even when this choice is to not translate them—are revealing not only of issues pertaining to the representation of the language in Hergé’s works, but also of peculiar cultural challenges in exposing one of Belgium’s most recognizable characters to Islamic and Arabic-speaking audiences. Moreover, when examining the Arabic that Hergé included in the original Tintin books written in French, not only do I mean to contribute to scholarship about Hergé and his art in general, and more specifically his realist tendencies through an assessment of the accuracy of the Arabic he employed, but I also will consider the ways in which Tintin books can be experienced by bilingual readers (who know Arabic but read the books in French or English for example)." From page 42.