Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the Arabic Culture

Abstract

The article investigates several Arabic translations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland . Framed by Warren Weaver’s book Alice in Many Tongues , the article locates the five problematic aspects which are: the parodied verses, the puns, the nonsense words, the jokes that involve logic, and Carroll’s twist of meaning.Through a critical comparative reading and analysis of Carroll’s original work, The Nursery Alice , and the different Arabic translations, the article illustrates how some cultural and linguistic constraints in the Arab world have prevented a faithful translation of Carroll’s work and thus limiting it to a solely plot-oriented one. With reference to selected examples from Carroll’s work, the article ends up with giving some suggested solutions for these five problematic translation areas. Keywords: Cross-Cultural Literary Translation, Cultural Studies, Arab Children’s Literature, Censorship