Wajdi Mouawad Writes Universally and Poetically; He Is Far Ahead of His Time
Art Service of Iran Book News Agency (IBNA) – Bahareh Golparvar; You will surely remember Wajdi Mouawad by the film "Incendies," which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011. A film based on a play of the same name by this Lebanese-Canadian playwright, actor, and director, it spoke of the continuity of human suffering from one generation to the next with a poignant ending.
The dominant aspect of this playwright’s works involves themes such as war, exile, identity, family, and generational suffering, which are the result of Mouawad’s own experience of migration and exile. Indeed, migration has played a significant role in shaping his dramatic world. In Wajdi Mouawad’s works, a kind of individual, historical, and poetic experience flows, and the combination of these concepts transforms his plays into modern forms of theater. They encourage the audience to reflect on the relationship between the individual and society, past and present, and identity, confronting them with questions like "Who are we?", "How do we face our past?", "Can we forgive or forget?". We sat down for a conversation with Nazanin Mihan, the translator of his works in Iran, about the works and world of this playwright.
What characteristics in Wajdi Mouawad’s works led you to decide to translate his plays?
Wajdi Mouawad is a Lebanese-Canadian writer who, at a young age, decided to migrate to Montreal, Canada, when the Cold War broke out in Lebanon. His writings are originally in French. I am also, in a way, an Iranian-Canadian, having migrated to Canada in my teenage years, and the Middle East was a common ground between us. I have read six or seven of his books and seen his films, and in my opinion, the common thread in all his writings is the loss of identity.
When people migrate from their homeland, they seem to have a lost identity, and then they return to their homeland to rediscover that lost identity. This theme exists in all of Mouawad’s writings, and it’s precisely what happened to me. After 15 years of living in Canada, I returned to Iran, and it was as if I started my life anew and rediscovered myself. This theme is also a monologue in the plays "Coastal People" (Sahelis) and "Explosion in the Heart."
In "Explosion in the Heart," there is talk of the death of a mother who passed away from cancer, and I also lost my mother to the same disease. In fact, I can say that I have felt every single dialogue, scene, and narrative in "Explosion in the Heart" with my flesh and blood; when in the cold Canadian winter, the main character is informed that his mother is dying in the hospital, and the memories that flash through his mind, memories like homeland, family, past, etc. "Confrontation" is something very prominent in Wajdi Mouawad’s works; confrontation with oneself and with another aspect of oneself. In "Coastal People," we have eight characters, one of whom is the main character, while we don’t know if the other characters are real or in the main character’s imagination. We also see the main character’s confrontation with other aspects of his being, on his journey to bury his father. This is very appealing to me in Wajdi Mouawad’s works.
Even in his other work, "All the Birds," which I recently translated, there is also a theme of separation and lost identity. It tells the story of a boy and a girl, one of whom is Muslim, and then both return to their homelands (one Palestine, the other Israel) and find their lost identity. In his works, it is very important to face your true self, and he looks at various aspects of personal life in a very humane way. An important dialogue in "Coastal People" is "Humans always fear the death of those they love more than their own death," and when I was reading the book’s introduction, this subject was very interesting to me.
How do you see Wajdi Mouawad’s position among contemporary playwrights? What do you attribute to the recent popularity of Mouawad’s plays among Iranian directors?
He is an actor, writer, and director; he has a theater company in France. He always addresses the issue of war from an anti-war perspective, highlighting the consequences war has on people’s lives. In "Coastal People," there is a dialogue that says, "War took our youth from us; something we will never get back. It took our friends and our childhood from us, we will not get them back." Mouawad speaks of the universality of war in his works. It doesn’t matter where the war is, it doesn’t matter when or where. Just as in "Coastal People," we have no specific time or place, and from certain elements the play itself shows, one can understand it’s from the Middle East to Canada or vice versa. It is usually rare for time and place to be mentioned in his works.
He is far ahead of his time. In his texts, you have scene-by-scene temporal shifts. At the moment he narrates the present, he also narrates the past, and then returns to the present. He also has a peculiar characterization that is extremely palpable and heavily dramaturged. Like Mr. McDonagh’s works, it’s similar. The author himself has dramaturged the work in such a way that it seems to have already been directed. Usually, if we want to perform the original texts of Wajdi Mouawad’s works, they would be over two hours long.
For example, in Iran, I know that the text Amin Saadi performs might be one-fifth of the actual text of "Coastal People." It’s interesting that until last year, anyone who read Wajdi Mouawad’s writings would say his texts are very difficult to direct and wouldn’t even approach them; another difficulty of Wajdi Mouawad’s writings is that one actor plays several roles. For instance, in "Coastal People," we have 20 characters, but eight actors play them; this makes directing and acting very difficult. How the staging is done and how these characters are distinguished from each other is very important.
I think that in Iran, until a few years ago, no one knew Wajdi Mouawad. The first time, Alireza Koushkjalali staged "Incendies," which was based on its film. In fact, Wajdi Mouawad has also turned his plays "Incendies" and "Coastal People" into films. In 2019 (year 98 in Iranian calendar), the play "The Singing Lady," directed by Alireza Koushkjalali, was performed with four characters and was actually an adaptation of the film "Incendies." Before that, even I didn’t know Wajdi Mouawad, and after that, I sought out this writer. That same year, I went to Canada and purchased Wajdi Mouawad’s play from a publisher in Toronto (a publisher that releases the translated works of Wajdi Mouawad from French to English). In Lebanese, his surname is "Mouawad," but in French, it is pronounced Mouawad; I used his Lebanese name in my translation.
The fact that directors have recently turned to this author’s works is because performing his works is a challenge for directors. However, in my opinion, there is still no one in Iran who can truly understand his works. Someone can gain a correct understanding of his works only if they have read at least six of Wajdi Mouawad’s plays and have worked on the play they intend to perform for at least a year. Unfortunately, in Iran, directors miss the core event that should happen in the play. They cannot perform and bring to the stage the main message of the play. Unfortunately, they do not know the author’s intention and perspective in writing that work.
So far, the most difficult translations I have undertaken have been related to Wajdi Mouawad’s works; he always includes religious, mystical, and historical sources and references in his works, and anyone who wants to perform his works must possess all this knowledge and research why the author wrote a particular dialogue or mentioned a specific symbol. In the works of his that have been performed in Iran, I have not seen justice done to the material. In all performances, the text has been ahead, and I stand by this statement. I hope that one day in Iran, a director with full awareness of Wajdi Mouawad’s writings and perspective will perform his works.
Why is Wajdi Mouawad’s language difficult to translate, and what challenges did it pose for you?
He has a unique language, and one of the reasons I say that directors who have performed his works so far haven’t understood what Wajdi Mouawad wants to say is the author’s language. Mouawad has a difficult language. I have read his English translations, but his original writings are in French. The translations I purchased have also won awards and were definitely approved by the author himself. Nevertheless, Mouawad’s language has a poetic quality that is more present in some of his works and less in others; in my opinion, this poetic quality must be preserved in the translation of his works, and I tried to preserve it. It was very difficult to ensure that the text retained its meaning while also being fluid. The problem we usually have with translated plays is that they are not fluid, and the audience doesn’t understand what they are reading. I am also a theater actor, and I have always paid attention to this issue in my translations: how a certain dialogue should be delivered if I were to say it as an actor, so that the audience understands it and it flows easily in the language; at the same time, the respect and style of the author’s voice must be preserved. Fidelity in translation was very important to me, and Wajdi Mouawad’s plays were among the most difficult I have translated; I thank God that I received good feedback on the result of my work. "Coastal People" was printed twice, and everyone who read the play itself had positive feedback.
I researched Wajdi Mouawad extensively and watched many documentaries. I saw performances and films based on his works to gain a relative understanding of him. I still say I don’t know him as I should. In Iran, besides me, Mohammad Reza Khaki has also translated one of Mouawad’s works, "Incendies," and is very sensitive about his text; I give him credit. In my opinion, "Incendies" first, and then "Coastal People" are among Wajdi Mouawad’s best texts.
What are the most important components in Mouawad’s theatrical world? Can it be said that the author’s being an immigrant has also been influential in the atmosphere of Mouawad’s plays?
It has definitely had an impact. You won’t find any of his texts that don’t address the issue of migration and war. But the way these components are expressed and narrated is different and fascinating in each play. In one of his works called "Forests," which has not yet been translated in Iran, he addresses the differences between three generations: a grandmother who fled war, a girl who entered another country in childhood and grew up there, and a girl who was born in that country. All three are searching for their lost identity. Of course, this is part of the author’s own life. Mouawad migrated during childhood in the Lebanese Cold War, and under those circumstances, this migration was forced; he expresses his concerns and issues through theater and plays about the devastating effects war can have in any country; it doesn’t matter which country or what nationality. Humanity is palpable in his works, confronting you with human emotions and feelings in his plays. The main character must confront his father’s death; how will he face his father’s death? He confronts his stories and characters with the most human, realistic, and inevitable human issues: death, birth, and love.
In your opinion, what is the connection between the issues expressed in his stories and the current global situation?
If I were to talk about these issues, the topic would become very complex, but if we read these plays more consciously and look at the world situation more consciously, it is clear: how many people from war-torn countries are forced to migrate, how many people lose their families, friends, and relatives due to forced displacement, and how many who migrate lose their status and identity. This is something universal and relevant everywhere in the world. Ultimately, everyone wants to return to their roots.
What is Wajdi Mouawad’s position in the theater scene of Arab countries?
As far as I know, his works are also performed in France, but I am not aware of the status of his play performances in Arab countries. For example, the play "All the Birds," which was performed in France and Canada, directed by Mouawad himself, was in Arabic, English, and German. He certainly has a standing among Arab countries because this author’s status is global and cannot be denied. But I am not aware of his performances in Arab countries. In my opinion, he expresses the concerns of his own country in his plays, and it must be important to him.
In your opinion, which part of Wajdi Mouawad’s works do Iranian audiences connect with the most?
This is very subjective. When I translated "Coastal People," some directors said that this play is too sad, and this volume of sorrow should not be conveyed to the people of Iran, but in my opinion, it is more about the human condition and the situation and narrative presented in the play that can be attractive. All of us in Iran have had friends who migrated, or perhaps we ourselves have done so; we have experienced war and lost loved ones during that time. There have been people who migrated from Iran and returned to Iran again, and this label of dual nationality sometimes causes immigrants to lose their identity and search for it. Issues like these are concerns and matters for everyone, everywhere in the world, and precisely this confrontation of humans with human emotions can be an attractive topic. Mouawad writes very humanely, and usually, anything that is humane, regardless of nationality and language, will be universal and connect with everyone. In his works, he never takes anyone’s side, and humanity is paramount in his writings.
