Behrangi and The Little Black Fish

Behrangi (1939–68), a leftist writer, teacher, and folklorist, played a prominent role in the history of modern Iranian literature. Best known for his children’s stories, he also wrote critically about the Iranian educational system, gathered Azerbaijani folklore, and translated to and from Turkish. In his essays, Behrangi advocates for a new type of children’s literature that does not cultivate obedience, false hope, and indoctrination. Instead, he wants stories to tell the truth about the harsh realities of the world and teach resistance against oppression.Footnote ⁴

Behrangi’s experiences growing up in a lower-class family in Tabriz and his association with leftist groups inform the readings of his works. His drowning, at the age of only 29, recalls Little Black Fish’s death, and many attributed it to the shah’s regime. It also burnished his status as a revolutionary hero, though the accusation against the regime is probably baseless.Footnote ⁵ His friend Hamzeh Farahati, years later, wrote of having been with Behrangi, who didn’t know how to swim and was carried away by the river’s current.Footnote ⁶ But a lack of evidence did not stop the guerrilla organization Fadā’iyān-e Khalq from eulogizing him in song and poetry as “the first of their number killed by the enemy before the start of the actual battle.”Footnote ⁷ Peyman Vahabzadeh writes, “The dissident generation needed a martyr so badly that it readily accepted this fabrication.”Footnote ⁸ Major writers and critics, such as Jalal Al-e Ahmad, turned him into symbolic capital, naming him as an exemplary “committed” writer. In 1971, three years after his death, the University of Tehran sponsored a festival in his honor, and by 1973 his writings were banned by the shah. As will be shown, the translators’ accounts of Behrangi’s life and death vary, and what they highlight influences their translations of The Little Black Fish.

Behrangi’s last story, The Little Black Fish, is one of the earliest and most renowned modern Iranian children’s stories. He first submitted it to Arash magazine. But it was deemed not ready for publication and only after edits, conducted with his permission, was it published posthumously by Kānun (the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults) as a children’s story in 1968.Footnote ⁹ Mohammad Ghanoonparvar points out that it was “one of the most popular stories” in Iran in the late 1960s through the 1970s.Footnote ¹⁰ In fact, few modern Persian works have received as much attention when they were published. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak writes, “The Little Black Fish is at once the culmination and the conclusion of Behrangi’s short but productive career as a writer of fiction.”Footnote ¹¹ In a few years, the story was translated into many languages. But the success of the book may have had as much to do with Farshid Mesghali’s illustrations as with Behrangi’s writing. In fact, it was the illustrations that won the Hans Christian Andersen Award (1974), the first graphic prize from the International Children’s Books’ Fair in Bologna (1968), and the Honorary Diploma from the Bratislava Biannual (1968). The inclusion of illustrations and their prominence becomes an important consideration for the retranslations.

The Little Black Fish is a story told by a grandmother to her children and grandchildren about the legendary adventures of Little Black Fish, who decides to leave his routine life to explore the world. On his way to learn where their stream ends, he finds friends such as a lizard (mārmulak), who gives him a sword, and fights oppressive creatures such as a pelican (morgh saqā) who feeds on fish. He ultimately reaches the sea but dies trying to set other fish free by killing their nemesis, a fish-eating bird (parandeh-ye māhi-khār).

The story has been read and studied in a number of ways—as a children’s fable, a literary text, and a sociopolitical allegory. It has been discussed as a coming-of-age journey foregrounding the importance of both freedom and education, as a story of cosmopolitanism, or as a political parable of a young revolutionary who leaves the shelter of family to fight oppression.Footnote ¹² Various translators and publishers, with different readers in mind, reinforce specific interpretations.

Overview of Retranslations

Retranslation is not a new activity, and writers have remarked on it for centuries. Yet the theorization, systematic research, and cultural study of retranslation are rather new.Footnote ¹³ Early scholarly works on retranslation can be seen in a special 1990 issue of Palimpsestes on retranslation.Footnote ¹⁴ In 2006, Siobhan Brownlie first coined the term “retranslation theory” for the “theoretical discussions and observations concerning the phenomenon of retranslation.”Footnote ¹⁵ Isabelle Collombat even called the twenty-first century l’âge de la retraduction (“the age of retranslation”).Footnote ¹⁶ This paper uses the theories and approaches of this emerging field in order to study Behrangi’s story.

Here, I focus on the six complete English translations of The Little Black Fish in print. After the very abridged adaption put out by Carolrhoda Books in 1971, three more translations were produced in the United States before the Islamic Revolution, by the Confederation of Iranian Students, National Union (early 1970s), Donald C. Croll (Reference Croll and Behrangi1974), and Eric Hooglund (Reference Hooglund, Hooglund and Behrangi1976). These translations supply the revolutionary, literary, and scholarly renditions of Behrangi’s story.

The Confederation was mostly made up of “Maoists” and “pro-guerrilla” factions.Footnote ¹⁷ Its politically encoded translation, published in a small “underground” pamphlet, includes an introduction and two additional stories by Behrangi. The introduction states that “[t]hose who contributed in the translation had little previous experience” and in fact the translation is prone to many errors and typos, such as “lizzard” or “shpherd.”Footnote ¹⁸ It also includes mistakes such as identifying the grandmother telling the story as a grandfather. I came upon two different self-published editions of the Confederation’s translation. Unfortunately, no publication date or translator’s names are listed on these books. The first copy, with RCW (the Research Committee of Washington) as publisher, is an earlier printing, possibly 1972, based on a reference in an edition put out by Three Continents Press.Footnote ¹⁹ Although the second copy has a call number dated 1970, it is from 1976 based on the fact that it is a reprint and the introduction states it was published eight years after Behrangi’s death.Footnote ²⁰

Croll was a graduate student of Persian literature at the University of Michigan. His translation was published in a 1974 special edition of The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing, dedicated to modern Iranian literature and edited by Thomas Ricks, who was at the time teaching Near East and Iranian History at Macalester College. Here Behrangi is placed among the leading modernist writers such as Sadeq Hedayat, Sadeq Chubak, Ebrahim Golestan, and Bahram Sadeqi. He is not the revolutionary figure portrayed by the Confederation. The short bio identifies Behrangi as “best known for his children’s stories and collections of Azari folk literature.”Footnote ²¹ Ricks writes that the selections were made based on “literary merits,” “historical importance,” and relevance to the “developments within contemporary Persian literature.”Footnote ²² He depicts Behrangi’s writing as an example of a “new and more sophisticated level of short-story writing.”Footnote ²³ Yet this publication is the only time that Behrangi’s story is printed beside other prominent literary selections in English. Interestingly, even Ricks, the great champion of Behrangi, does not discuss The Little Black Fish as a major literary text in his essay on “Contemporary Persian Literature” that is included with this special issue of the journal.

Hooglund (b. 1944), a political scientist specializing in Iran with a doctorate in international relations from Johns Hopkins University, is the second and last non-Iranian translator. His translation was published along with four additional stories translated by his wife at the time, Mary Elaine Hooglund (née Hegland). The result was the first Persian book put out by Three Continents Press, a small publisher with a focus on African studies and Caribbean literature that was adding the Middle East to its catalog. It was later reprinted in 1987 by Lynne Rienner, another scholarly and textbook publisher, which continued to print Three Continents’ books after it ceased publication. In the co-authored introduction, the translators write that the book is “for both those who have special interests in Iran and those English readers who enjoy good literature.”Footnote ²⁴ This edition, which became the standard source for other academics, is also the most scholarly. The book is not meant for children and there are no illustrations with the stories. Instead, it comes with acknowledgements, a translators’ introduction, an elegiac essay by Gholam Hoseyn Sa’edi, and an extended “Bibliographical-Historical Essay” (twenty-nine pages) with a separate bibliography written by Ricks. The scholarly attention can also be seen in the intertextual reference to other translations, the inclusion of their reasons for the retranslation, as well as the reviews the book received. In fact, this is the only book included in this study that received any scholarly review.

There are also three new translations published after the Islamic Revolution, by Hooshang Amuzegar (1991, revised Reference Amuzegar1996), Ruby Emam (Reference Emam and Behrangi2008), and Azita Rassi (2015). These retranslations are not published with other stories and they reframe the story as a tool for learning Persian or as a children’s story.

Amuzegar (b. 1921), whose brother was prime minister of Iran during the shah’s reign, is from an older, pre-revolution generation of Iranian immigrants. He taught Persian at the Diplomatic Language Centre of the British Foreign Office and wrote Persian-language textbooks. His translation is intended for learning Persian. His bilingual edition of The Little Black Fish was published first in 1991 by Iranbooks as a small pamphlet with J. Athill’s translation assistance and Yousef J. Javidan’s simple illustrations. A revised edition with a brief foreword by publisher Farhad Shirzad (b. 1959) and gray-scale illustrations by Allison Remick was published in 1996 (reprint 2007) under Iranbooks’ new name, Ibex Publishers.Footnote ²⁵ The new edition is also part of the Classics of Persian Literature series that includes The Poems of Hafez and Selected Poems from the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. Like the Confederation’s version, this is an instance where illustrations were added. Unlike Croll and Hooglund, Amuzegar gets no biography. His name was even removed from the cover of the revised edition.

The translation by Ruby Emam (b. 1945), the first female translator of The Little Black Fish, is a self-published family effort supported by her niece and nephews. Emam grew up in Azerbaijan, like Behrangi. Though listed on the cover, she has no biography. After Carolrhoda’s adaptation, Emam’s version is the first time the story was published with colorful illustrations (seven full pages) and for children (age eight and over). But for some reason, Behrangi’s name is spelled “Beh-rang.”

Like Emam’s book, the most recent edition, translated by Rassi, is also a large, standard-format children’s book. It is packaged as an English children’s book and not as an exotic oriental tale. The Little Black Fish (age seven and over) is a bestseller for Tiny Owl Publishing, a new publisher of Iranian work that produces children’s books and is based in London. Delaram Ghanimifard (b. 1973) and Karim Arghandehpour (b. 1969) founded the press in 2015 after they moved to the United Kingdom in 2010. Rassi, who lives in Malaysia, translated Tiny Owl’s first eight books. But she is listed only inside the edition, alongside other contributors. Tiny Owl includes the original color illustrations of Mesghali and features him on the cover. The edition also contains biographies of both Mesghali and Behrangi. As with many children’s books, there are no page numbers.

For this study, I follow two approaches in translation studies: textual and contextual. In my textual analysis, I evaluate the original retranslation hypothesis, which argued that later translations are more literal and closer to the original text. I also examine whether the text has been domesticated for English readers. In the contextual analysis, I look at another retranslation hypothesis, questioning whether retranslations are the results of changes in historical, cultural, and social contexts. I evaluate the impact of such factors as the Islamic Revolution, US‒Iran relations, and the growing Iranian diaspora. I examine how the subsequent translations rewrite Behrangi’s story to reflect their differing interpretations.

Textual Analysis and Domestication

Andrew Chesterman coined the much-discussed “retranslation hypothesis”: the descriptive proposition that “[l]ater translations … tend to be closer to the original than earlier ones.”Footnote ²⁶ The hypothesis references earlier studies by Antoine Berman and Paul Bensimon in the special 1990 issue of Palimpsestes, where they argued that a culture at first is reluctant to accept a foreign text and needs to adapt it.Footnote ²⁷ But in time, there is no longer a need and the retranslations move closer to the source. Inspired by Goethe’s evolutionary model for translation, Berman proposes a maturing trajectory in which, ultimately, a grand canonical translation is produced—one that restores the essence of the source as well as its unique foreignness. However, later case studies by a number of scholars have questioned the universality of such a hypothesis and shown that closer translation does not always occur.Footnote ²⁸ Brownlie, for example, argues that “rather than through reference to a general historical progression, the nature of translations and retranslations is best explained through particular contextual conditions.”Footnote ²⁹

My purpose here is not simply to prove or disprove the hypothesis—though, as I will show later, the retranslations of The Little Black Fish prove the hypothesis wrong. I am interested in the relationship of the translations to the Persian source. Analyzing how close these translations stay to the original—i.e. how literal they are—also reveals a tendency toward foreignization. The use of domestication and foreignization, which has been much discussed in translation studies, goes back to Friedrich Schleiermacher’s idea that “the more precisely the translation adheres to the turns and figures of the original, the more foreign it will seem to its reader.”Footnote ³⁰ Paloposki defines foreignization as “the preserving of the original cultural context, in terms of settings, names, etcetera.”Footnote ³¹ On the other hand, translations that domesticate remove the foreign elements in order to produce a text that seems native to the target culture.Footnote ³²

It is obvious that literal translation is not possible and in most cases not even desirable. The notion of what may be truly closer to the original source can also be complicated by many factors, including the original aim and effect of the text for the author and its readers. A text may appear domesticated but be close to the source, as Karimi-Hakkak argues in “Beyond Translation: Interactions between English and Persian Poetry.”Footnote ³³ However, for the purpose of this study, I focus on literal translation as a means for getting closer to the original source. Berman, for example, contends that “‘literal’ means: attached to the letter (of works). Labor on the letter in translation is more originary than restitution of meaning.”Footnote ³⁴ Literal translation is well suited as a quantifiable measure for comparing a number of retranslations and for identifying the strategy of domestication. My intention is not to discuss the values of literal translation, advocate foreignization, or prescribe a translation method.Footnote ³⁵

To analyze how literal a translation is, one can start by reviewing what is added to or removed from the source text. Although a word-for-word translation is not possible, a translation that is significantly longer than the original has often added more words to explain or elaborate on the text. When comparing word counts, all translations of The Little Black Fish are longer than the original Persian, possibly because they have to explain the cultural-specific idioms, or because Persian uses fewer words and its syntax is more flexible. Yet some, like Emam’s translation, are significantly longer than others.

For this study, I will use Hooglund’s translation as the standard for comparison. His translation, which is around 680 more words than the Persian, usually stays close to the original. For instance, when referring to Little Black Fish, Hooglund is the only one who follows Behrangi as he uses such variations of the name as “little black fish,” “little fish,” “black fish,” or just plain “fish.” Behrangi even uses “little black fish” as both a proper name and a description or type. The fish introduces himself as Little Black Fish (māhi-ye siyāh kuchulu) to kafche māhi-hā (a made-up name for tadpoles), while to the lizard he describes himself as “a little black fish” (māhi-ye siyāh kuchulu’i). Hooglund follows Behrangi and varies between “a” and “the” appropriately to compensate for the lack of articles in Persian. Croll and Confederation mainly use “the little fish,” and when they employ other variations they are not necessarily following Behrangi. The post-revolution translators, on the other hand, apply the full name, though in different ways. Amuzegar mainly uses “the little black fish.” Emam follows suit, but capitalizes the name, while Rassi turns “Little Black Fish” into a proper name without an article. The translators also seem inconsistent in their implementation. For example, Rassi’s use of “Little Fish” and “the Little Black Fish” seems accidental.Footnote ³⁶

Hooglund’s translation, which came after Croll’s, is in debt to him and sometimes even uses the same phrases. For example, Hooglund is the only translator, beside Croll, who uses “half-pint” for nim vajab-e (“half of a handspan”). But, unlike Hooglund, Croll’s language is often awkward. For example, Croll translates tu-ye sar va sineh-ash mezad (“hitting the chest and head”) as “The black fish’s mother tore at her hair and breast.”Footnote ³⁷ Not only is the use of “hair” not literal here, it is even incongruous.

Hooglund’s translation is more domesticated and fluent than Croll’s. In fact, he uses around 300 fewer words than Croll, despite the fact that Croll (I assume accidentally) omits a few lines from an early argument between an older fish and Little Black Fish. The result, even with problems, yields a faithful and readable translation. Karimi-Hakkak, in his review of the edition, complains of Hooglund’s mistakes but ultimately agrees that the result is “fairly readable” and that Behrangi’s “style is not altered much and his images are evoked faithfully.”Footnote ³⁸ Gert J. J. DeVries, while complaining of the sluggish translation, describes the result as “generally correct, if seldom brilliant or particularly inventive.”Footnote ³⁹ Hooglund, on occasion, does move away from the source for reasons of style and variation, or to reduce repetition. For example, he reduces the repetition of “mother said” and “little fish said” and varies the translation for goft (“said”) in exchanges between Little Black Fish and the school of tiny fish (māhi rizeh-hā).Footnote ⁴⁰

Amuzegar also tries to stay close to the original but is more prone to cut what he feels is unnecessary. The result, as I will show, is a sloppier and looser translation. He, for example, misrepresents the exchange between Little Black Fish and parandeh-ye māhi-khār (translated as “heron”), which is based on an ancient fable.Footnote ⁴¹ In Behrangi’s story, parandeh-ye māhi-khār is tricked into talking and dropping Little Black Fish, caught in its beak. All other translators are careful to distinguish between when parandeh-ye māhi-khār is thinking or speaking. But Amuzegar writes that the bird “replied” and “answered” when it is reflecting to itself—thus missing the punchline.Footnote ⁴² Amuzegar also feels free to omit things. For example, he shortens the conversation between Little Black Fish and the tiny fish in the pouch of the pelican, as well as the encounter between Little Black Fish and the swordfish (areh māhi).Footnote ⁴³ His translation has around 100 fewer words than Hooglund’s.

Confederation is more concerned with the message and is willing to expand the story to enhance its political interpretation. Its translation runs more than 750 words longer than Hooglund’s. Sometimes the additions are in parentheses, other times not. Confederation is not domesticating the text for an English-speaking audience. Instead, it adds its own political interpretation, such as identifying the fisherman with the oppressive regime. For instance, the fish’s condition of living in a state of fear is elaborated on with such parenthetically added sentences as: “Whenever someone suggested that something should be done differently, it was said that it was better not to do it because it might get the attention of the fisherman.”Footnote ⁴⁴ The demand for revolution is underscored with added text such as, “all the fish who have found the sea started out alone and afraid. But together they, too, are mighty” and “even their worst enemies will not dare to try to hurt them.”Footnote ⁴⁵

Emam’s translation is the longest, with over 2,000 words more than Hooglund’s. Emam does not usually add text to advocate a new interpretation. Instead, she domesticates by elaborating, embellishing, or encouraging a positive message. For example, she qualifies Little Black Fish’s threat “I will … kill you all with this dagger” by adding “against my will.”Footnote ⁴⁶ Instead of Hooglund’s more literal translation (“The little fish’s words angered everyone”), Emam writes, “The Little Black Fish’s courageous words and the fearless manner in which he was expressing his thoughts and ideas were upsetting and alarming the whole community.”Footnote ⁴⁷ Emam’s voice interjects not only by expanding on the story, but also by adding footnotes, which are rarely found in children’s books.

Rassi’s translation is the most domesticated and furthest from the source. In an interview with Shahrvand BC (29 May 2015), Rassi states that the language and vocabulary of the early translations of Behrangi’s story were “not particularly tailored for children.” For her translation, she also got help from an “English-speaking editor, who has much experience in creating children’s books in the UK.” Rassi explains that the editor provided “the necessary freedom to the Little Black Fish so that he could communicate with English-speaking readers.” The goal is to have the book “as if a native English speaker has originally written it.” To this end, the tone has been changed; she explains, “If we translate those words to English exactly as they are, it could become the language of disrespect and impudence.” Footnote ⁴⁸ For example, when Little Black Fish says to the frog, “Even if you live a hundred times as long as you already have, you’ll stay as ignorant as you are!,” Rassi qualifies this by adding, “Which was a rude thing to say to the frog, but Little Black Fish had had enough of being told off for one day.”Footnote ⁴⁹

Rassi’s translation, similar to the Confederation version, has an interpretation that it wants to promote. Although she keeps the plot, she abridges and modifies content deemed too repetitive or not appropriate for children. The result ends up being the shortest, with over 300 fewer words than Hooglund’s. Rassi, for instance, abridges the conversations of Little Black Fish with the frog, the lizard, and the school of tiny fish. The goal of her retranslation is to produce a domesticated children’s book with a positive, inspiring message for all English readers. For example, she adds such cheerful children’s book elements like, “It was such fun—whee! Splash!” To give Little Black Fish a better reason for wanting to leave her home, Rassi describes the community: “They weren’t very nice or very clever fish.” Her translation minimizes the armed struggle, and the idea that rebellion is the solution. Instead of the martyrdom emphasized by Confederation, she concentrates on sharing what is learned through the journey and adds, “I must try and return to tell my friends all that I now know.”Footnote ⁵⁰

As another basis for comparison, I will consider the translation of unusual or arguable authorial choices. The first example, Behrangi’s reference to a moon landing, has been pointed to as an anomaly by both critics and translators. In Hooglund’s translation, the wise moon says “have you heard that humans want to fly up and land on me in a few years?” and later, “It’s a difficult task … but whatever they want, humans can … ”Footnote ⁵¹ The conversation is then interrupted by the dark cloud that covers the face of the moon. This contemporary reference, which may seem irrelevant, is in fact important. Behrangi interjects his time into the fable, telling readers to interpret a timeless tale as an allegory for the modern era. The moon is not just the idealized messenger sharing its light; it is also the real moon. The reference also advances the importance of scientific pursuit. Confederation, Croll, and Hooglund include the story. Emam adds a footnote: “the story was written before the American astronauts landed on the moon.”Footnote ⁵² Amuzegar ignores it. Rassi keeps the tenor of the message but updates it by adding that the moon landing has already occurred and that one day fish can also visit the moon.Footnote ⁵³

The second example is Behrangi’s use of punctuation, such as when setting off a story within the story. For instance, to start the grandmother’s story, Behrangi uses only a colon and a paragraph break. Hooglund, Amuzegar, and Confederation also use the colon. But only Hooglund follows Behrangi’s style and does not add any additional markings. Amuzegar and Confederation use punctuation inconsistently and they use double quotes for the grandmother’s story, but they do not distinguish the quotes inside her story with single quotes. Emam ignores Behrangi’s punctuation, and does not add any of her own. Croll and Rassi domesticate the text by inserting quotation marks, as is more common in English texts. Croll uses the American style of single quotes inside double quotes, while Rassi uses the reverse, British, style. These two examples seem to confirm the general sloppiness of the translations of Amuzegar and Confederation, while also validating how Hooglund tries to produce a close translation, Emam adds description, and Rassi adapts the text for English readers.

For the last textual comparison, I will examine the translation of culture-specific idioms and phrases.Footnote ⁵⁴ These terms include untranslatable concepts, metaphors, and images. The translator can choose from a number of different strategies: keep the foreign words, do a literal translation, substitute an English equivalent, translate only the meaning, explain the term, use a hypernym, or ignore it. In evaluating foreignness, I also consider if the translations that feel foreign in English are also unusual for the source readers. Below are two examples of cultural-specific idioms.

Confederation: “You woke us from a long sleep”Footnote ⁵⁵

Croll: “You woke us up from the sleep of a rabbit”Footnote ⁵⁶

Hooglund: “You’ve awakened us from a deep sleep”Footnote ⁵⁷

Amuzegar: “You have shown us how lazy we have been”Footnote ⁵⁸

Emam: “You woke us up from our hare-like slumber” (with a footnote)Footnote ⁵⁹

Rassi: Doesn’t translate the sentence.

This sentence is used by Little Black Fish’s young friends to describe how he had opened their eyes to their hollow lives. The literal meaning of the phrase khāb-e khargushi in the sentence is, as Croll has translated, the “sleep of a rabbit.” Of course, in Croll's translation, readers encounter something unfamiliar in English that is not actually odd in Persian. They have to guess the implication, i.e. to be uninformed and inattentive. The phrase comes from the belief that rabbits sleep with their eyes half-open and thus appear to be awake while they are actually asleep—akin to sleepwalking through life. Emam also gives a literal translation but adds a footnote with a short synopsis of Henri La Fontaine’s “Tortoise and Hare,” though it is not the actual source. Furthermore, instead of a simple “his friends answered,” as it is in Persian, she translates, “Announced his friends with great respect and admiration in their tone.” Hooglund and Confederation retain the concept of sleep and try to find an English equivalent. Hooglund’s use of “deep sleep” is technically not the same but it does convey the tenor. Confederation, going after a similar equivalence, uses “long sleep,” which is not as accurate as “deep sleep.” Amuzegar ignores the idea of sleep and uses a phrase that is, I assume, based on the well-known fable of the tortoise and the hare. Rassi ignores the phrase altogether.

Confederation: “you people, in your cruelty chased him out of our village”Footnote ⁶⁰

Croll: “you all put his poor head under the water”Footnote ⁶¹

Hooglund: “you all drowned that poor fellow”Footnote ⁶²

Amuzegar: “you people certainly got rid of him”Footnote ⁶³

Emam: “you all joined together, teamed up and got rid of the poor creature”Footnote ⁶⁴

Rassi: “you killed him! You killed my friend!”Footnote ⁶⁵

The second example refers to what the elders did to Little Black Fish’s friend, the snail. Here again, Croll does a literal translation. Hooglund’s version is not word-for-word but does capture the same meaning while referencing water. Rassi uses short, emphatic phrases as a hypernym, ignoring how the killing occurred. Emam, Amuzegar, and Confederation do not directly reference a killing. Emam again elaborates by stressing the collective reprisal. With the use of “people,” Amuzegar and Confederation move away from the context and anthropomorphize. Following its reading of the story as a political allegory, Confederation paraphrases in a way that goes even further and qualifies the act by placing the action in a village and adding the qualifier “cruelty.”

This study disproves the retranslation hypothesis that retranslations progressively get closer to the original. In fact, the later translations of The Little Black Fish have domesticated the text. The earlier translations by Croll and Hooglund are more literal, while the post-revolution translations move away from the source. Croll, as a student of Persian who was publishing some of his first translations, seems concerned with getting things exact, especially when it comes to cultural-specific idioms. He produces the most foreign and literal translations, even when the awkwardness does not exist in the original or benefit the story. Hooglund, another foreign scholar of Persian who also respects Behrangi’s literary significance, is more confident with the Persian language. His aim is to produce a close translation “into colloquial English” and “avoid the turgidity of Persian phraseology.”Footnote ⁶⁶ He also benefits from the previous translations. Ultimately, Croll and Hooglund, as American scholars wanting to inform English-language readers about Iran, are engaged in foreignizing by wanting to take the reader toward the source.Footnote ⁶⁷

Although acknowledging the difficulty of translation and the importance of Behrangi’s words, Confederation is less interested in literal translation or in domesticating or foreignizing the text. Its contribution is also less consistent and more prone to error. Sometimes they use literal translations, other times they are writing their own story. Amuzegar is also a native Persian speaker and his book comes with the Persian text. But he does not seem to be in dialogue with the previous translations and, surprisingly for a teacher of Persian creating a bilingual edition of the story, he produces a less literal or accurate text than Hooglund.

Eman and Rassi, the most recent translators, produced the longest and shortest translations, respectively. They both domesticate the text for English readers. Emam’s translation tends to domesticate through explanation. She tries to convey her understanding of the story by interjecting her voice with elaboration and expansion. Rassi’s translation, produced with the help of an English editor, moves away from the original text and focuses on the plot and general story. The result is the most domesticated translation. Yet by placing the translation alongside the original illustrations, the children’s book is also close to the original, without a sense of foreignization. Ultimately, although they use two very different approaches, Rassi and Hooglund have produced valuable contributions to the translation of The Little Black Fish: Hooglund by his adherence to the actual text and by providing greater context, and Rassi and Tiny Owl by producing the children’s story with its original illustrations.

Contextual Analysis and Rewriting

Another approach to the study of translation is in the wider context of cultural studies. The “cultural turn” in translation studies was championed in the 1990s by Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, who argue that translators are not just engaged in representing a foreign culture, they are also in dialogue with the different ideological discourses of the receiving society. Bassnett writes that “the study of the practice of translation had moved on from its formalist phase and was beginning to consider broader issues of context, history and convention.”Footnote ⁶⁸ Lefevere asserts that translation is “a rewriting of an original text” and can be “inspired by ideological motivations, or produced under ideological constraints” of the target culture.Footnote ⁶⁹ Within the ideological constraints of their culture, translators select and rewrite texts through their word choices, ordering, and emphasis, as well as by any omissions and additions. Publishers then package the text so as to highlight a specific reading for their intended patrons and audience. The work of translation studies helps identify the ideological discourses and manipulations that shape these rewritings. As a product of the discourses of the target culture, retranslation is also closely coupled with rewriting.

In 2012, a cultural retranslation hypothesis was evaluated by RETRADES (Studies on Cultural and Textual Interaction: Retranslation). It was proposed that “each new translation must represent a socio-historical change and … be linked to external changes in the historical, cultural and social context of the target culture or to changes in the poetic and aesthetic considerations of the translations themselves.”Footnote ⁷⁰ Unlike the earlier hypothesis, which offers a progressive understanding of retranslation, this cultural hypothesis is not meant to be evolutionary. Instead, as a diachronic approach to retranslation study, it exposes the ideological shifts in a society. Although the research done by RETRADES did not confirm this cultural hypothesis, the retranslations of The Little Black Fish do. Changes in the ideological discourses in the United States and Iran are linked to the rewritings found in the different retranslations of Behrangi’s story.

As the Amazon rankings attest, the retranslation of Behrangi’s story is not due to demand from an American readership or what Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott call “reading formations.”Footnote ⁷¹ There is no American market waiting, as there has been for Iranian memoirs. For example, based on Amazon rankings as of 24 December 2017, the best-selling translation of Behrangi’s story is by Rassi with the ranking of 1,128,384. On the other hand, the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran is ranked 46,653; Funny in Farsi is ranked 45,498; and The Complete Persepolis is ranked 3,334.

The translations of The Little Black Fish are the results of the interests of the translators and publishers, as well as the ideological discourses of the target countries. They are the products of such sociopolitical factors as US‒Iran relations and the growing Iranian diaspora community. Possibly the most significant factor is the paradigm shift that followed the Islamic Revolution.

Several important transformations occurred before the revolution, when the United States and Iran enjoyed close and growing relations. These included the start of the Middle East Studies Association in North America (1966) as well as a wave of Iranian students coming to US shores and their radicalization in Iran and abroad. By 1978, over 36,000 Iranian students were attending US universities, a larger number than from any other foreign country.Footnote ⁷² Many of these students had close ties with Iran even if they opposed the regime. During the 1970s, membership in the Confederation was “illegal” and a “prison offense,”Footnote ⁷³ which is one reason there is no mention of the translators’ names in their publications. Yet inspired by dominant adabiyat-e moteahed (“committed literature”) in Iran and the start of guerrilla warfare, students became more vocal and radical. By “1975 the Confederation approved a new charter … calling explicitly for the overthrow of the shah’s regime.”Footnote ⁷⁴ The pre-revolution translations of Behrangi’s story parallel the increased politicization of Iranian writers and students. The radicalization can be seen by comparing the different introductions that come with the Confederation’s editions as well as Ricks’ essays that accompany the translations by Croll and Hooglund.

The literary publication of the Confederation was part of its promotion of a revolutionary struggle that lent itself to the greater global leftist movements of the time. The translation was not published to promote its literary merits. The Confederation wanted to showcase a revolutionary message, which in its eyes was to prepare and educate the youth for uprising. For the Confederation, Behrangi wrote children’s stories partly to avoid censorship (the “limitations placed upon him by the oppression”).Footnote ⁷⁵ The inclusion of “reprinted by Rastakhiz-e Siahkal” (“Siāhkal resurgence”) in the back of the later edition confirms this revolutionary mission. Iranian leftists called the 1971 Siāhkal incident (a guerrilla operation against the Pahlavi regime) the resurgence and the “guerrillas gradually rose to the status of hagiographized liberators.”Footnote ⁷⁶ As the country moved toward the revolution, introductions to the later publication also became more militant, calling for armed struggle. For example, the earlier Confederation edition describes Behrangi’s death as “an alleged drowning incident,”Footnote ⁷⁷ while the later edition declares that he was “killed by the SAVAK agents.”Footnote ⁷⁸ The earlier edition talks about the “barbaric oppression existing in Iranian society,” “a call for action,” and “organized conscious revolt against the established norms.”Footnote ⁷⁹ The later printing goes further, pointing to “starting the armed struggle as the only way toward liberation” and endorsing “IRANIAN PEOPLE’S FEDAI GUERRILLAS.”Footnote ⁸⁰ It also alludes to the “imperialist exploitation headed by the U.S.”Footnote ⁸¹ In the later introduction, the story is interpreted as a call for arms against the shah’s regime, e.g. “the tadpoles represent the petit-bourgeoisie and the seagull represents the dictator regime and the Shah.”Footnote ⁸² The poverty and hardship of Behrangi’s upbringing is also further foregrounded to emphasize his working class background.

The American translators Croll and Hooglund were not literary scholars or creative writers. Translation was only a secondary activity for them, and they did not continue to translate Persian literature. They were students of area studies during the cold war when the United States was invested in the Middle East and it was possible for Americans to study in Iran or work in related diplomatic services. Their translations, printed by small, international-focused publishers, were evidence of the growing impact of Middle Eastern studies and the rising scholarly research on the Middle East. For them, the revolutionary aspects of The Little Black Fish were part of a greater resurgence of neoliberalism and liberal democracy’s fight for freedom during the cold war. They tried to uncover Iran through its literary canons and were not partial to the radical leftist rhetoric. For example, in their introduction, Eric and Mary Hooglund identify the themes of Behrangi’s stories as “(1) the acquisition of knowledge and (2) the use of knowledge to help correct social problems.”Footnote ⁸³ Unlike the Confederation’s interpretation, where the menacing birds become symbols of “the dictator regime and the Shah,”Footnote ⁸⁴ the translators describe them as just “deceitful” and “dangerous.”Footnote ⁸⁵ They interpret the characters as archetypes, such as “deceitful (the pelican)” or “wise (the moon).” They also describe Behrangi’s “untimely death” by noting “he drown [sic] while swimming with a friend.”Footnote ⁸⁶

A more political-historical treatment is provided by Ricks’ essays. And as with the Confederation’s introduction, Ricks’ essays become more radical with time. In an early essay in The Literary Review (1974), Ricks focuses on literary movements and innovations, instead of such political moments as the Siāhkal incident. For example, he briefly mentions the 1953 coup and describes it as the “final struggle between Mussadiq and the reigning monarch in August, 1953.”Footnote ⁸⁷ In a later essay accompanying Hooglund’s translation and subtitled “Samad Behrangi and Contemporary Iran: The Artist in Revolutionary Struggle” (1976), he expands on the event and notes the “now well publicized intervention of the C.I.A. in Iran’s affairs.”Footnote ⁸⁸ Earlier, he wrote that “the petty bourgeoisie, grew more cautious with the unexpected death of Samad Bihrangi,”Footnote ⁸⁹ whereas in the later essay he argues, “It is now clear that Behrangi’s unexpected and untimely death in 1968 arose out of his role in the movement both as a teacher and a writer.”Footnote ⁹⁰ In the later essay, Ricks even lists the themes of Behrangi’s stories as including “the historical conflict between the monarchy … and the revolutionary groups; … the need for armed struggle in order to create lasting benefit for all the people.” As with the Confederation, in Ricks’ later essay, Behrangi’s use of a children’s story is characterized as a way “to evade censorship through allegories and metaphors.”Footnote ⁹¹

Ricks’ second essay became controversial and received much criticism. For example, Karimi-Hakkak points out its “many mistakes,” as well as “[l]ong digressions and an excessive use of undefined terms of reference.”Footnote ⁹² DeVries spends most of his book review repudiating Ricks’ analysis and arguing against its “untenable equation of political with literary revolutionariness.”Footnote ⁹³ Hillmann calls it “flawed by the writer’s radical bias and misinformation.”Footnote ⁹⁴ In the end, the essay, which was meant to provide important historical background, was removed from Lynne Rienner’s 1987 reprint, reducing the more radical evaluation of Behrangi’s works.

An important factor in the post-revolution translations is the growing role of the Iranian diaspora community. In the case of Behrangi’s works, post-revolution translations are done by Iranian immigrants.Footnote ⁹⁵ Already the population of Iranians in America had jumped from 46,000 in the late 1970s to 155,000 in the 1980s.Footnote ⁹⁶ Iranian immigrants took over the promotion of Iranian culture that had earlier been facilitated by the Pahlavi government. Their extended immigrant community were now also potential readers. In addition, this generation introduced many women writers and translators; Emam is one example.

As members of the Iranian immigrant community tried to “move away from the urgency of an exilic and immigrant narrative to one that situates Iran and Iranian culture in the continuum of more global diasporic consciousness,” they encountered many difficulties.Footnote ⁹⁷ Whether back in Iran or in the West, they feared the loss of their rights or what Giorgio Agamben describes as being turned into “bare life” (zoê).Footnote ⁹⁸ James Clifford writes, “Peoples whose sense of identity is centrally defined by collective histories of displacement and violent loss cannot be ‘cured’ by merging into a new national community. This is especially true when they are the victims of ongoing, structural prejudice.”Footnote ⁹⁹ Most Iranian immigrants recognize this “violent loss” and continue to experience prejudice. They are also hailed and interpellated to respond to the prevailing ideological discourse and to speak for Iran and Iranians. So, they use writing and translation as a way of constructing an identity that responds to the antagonist public narrative.

The Little Black Fish has an important place in the consciousness of Iranians growing up during the revolution, and the story continues as a powerful reminder and a source of nostalgia among the diaspora community. Laura Secor begins the history of the revolution in her nonfiction work Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran by retelling “[the children’s story] that inspired a generation of Iranian revolutionaries.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Roya Hakakian’s popular autobiography Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran and Zohreh Ghahremani’s fictionalized narrative Sky of Red Poppies both reference the story and Behrangi’s death. Hakakian even parallels her growing up in a Jewish family during the revolution with the story of Little Black Fish and indirectly extends the allegory to her later immigration. In a recent critical work, Iranian Identity and Cosmopolitanism: Spheres of Belonging (2016), Lucian Stone also identifies The Little Black Fish as the story of “cosmopolitans,” who learn “to sensorially and intellectually explore the world, and to appreciate diversity and cultivate empathy.”Footnote ¹⁰¹

Translations support Iranian immigrants’ attempts to transform from an exilic community reclaiming the past to an assimilated diasporic community striving for the cosmopolitan, transnational future. Immigrants want to rewrite the negative public narrative on Iranians using literature and art as positive cultural capital. To this end, The Little Black Fish has been defanged of its overt militant references and is no longer tied to its leftist revolutionary time. Instead, the narrative is reframed as a universal tale with beautiful illustrations that can speak to all children. The story is meant to advocate a vision of liberal democracy and offer a positive portrayal of immigrants’ desire to go beyond the confines of home in search of freedom and democracy.

As early Iranian immigrants, Amuzegar and the publisher of Ibex participated in academic studies of Iran. Ibex, which started in 1979, has a very different mission than the Confederation. It wants to introduce “the culture of the Persian speaking world … to the West” and publishes books that are “used to teach Persian,” like Amuzegar’s Persian-language textbooks.Footnote ¹⁰² Regarding Behrangi’s death, the publisher is vague: “Because of his anti-government views, suspicions were raised regarding the circumstance of his death.”Footnote ¹⁰³ For Ibex, “the story can be read in many ways.” The “call to rebellion” is only one reading, along with “encouragement to independence” and the “journey from innocence to experience.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴ And although Behrangi’s story is included in the “Classics of Persian Literature,”Footnote ¹⁰⁵ the publisher still finds fault with its “not so subtle anti-authoritarian message.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶

Unlike other translators we have discussed so far, Emam and Rassi, whose work appears after 9/11, are not tied to academe. Behrangi’s story is not packaged as an important literary work or a revolutionary text. Instead, they present The Little Black Fish as a children’s story for a larger, mainstream, audience. Emam grew up before the revolution and immigrated to the United States in 1992. She is an example of an Iranian immigrant self-publishing as a way to reclaim the past and rewrite the negative discourse on Iran. Though Emam is influenced by the revolutionary analysis of the story, her commentary frames the book with a broad universal message that can appeal to most readers. She calls it “one of the best stories ever written for children,” with “many great lessons.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ On the back cover, Behrangi is described as “a national hero” and his writing is “filled with hope, stamina for life, awareness and wisdom, portraying realities of life.” Emam emphasizes teamwork and elaborates on the importance of diversity and acceptance. For example, instead of Hooglund’s more literal translation (“you’d know that there are many others in the world who are pleased with their appearances”),Footnote ¹⁰⁸ she writes, “you would have known by now that there are many other creatures in this world, who might look like me, and also there are others who do not look like me, but we all are beautiful each in our own unique and precious way.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹

Yet her translation is also dedicated to her sister, Parvaneh Emam, who died as a leftist in 1983 and is “on the list of ‘Martyrs of the Peykar Organization for the Liberation of the Working Class.”Footnote ¹¹⁰ The revolutionary narrative of Little Black Fish thus recalls her sister’s story, but Emam does not mention her sister’s background in the book. Emam also avoids reproducing the narrative of the victimized Iranian woman. Her translation can be recognized as a veiled nostalgic elegy for the heroic leftist martyrs and their struggle for freedom. On social media, meanwhile, she speaks more openly about the book’s revolutionary message. For example, in response to an online Amazon reviewer’s comment on a comic-book adaption of the story, she writes of the translator’s awareness of “dialectical materialism” and reports that Behrangi “was executed after submitting this work for publishing.”Footnote ¹¹¹

Emam employs explanation to domesticate the text, while Rassi edits the language and rewrites the tone. Rassi and the Tiny Owl publishers grew up after the revolution.Footnote ¹¹² They signal a new generation of Iranian publishers, who want to be part of the larger literary community of their target culture by promoting cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. Tiny Owl has been the most successful distributor and proponent of Behrangi’s story. Amazon sales rankings attest to the reception of the Tiny Owl edition. The book was also shortlisted for the Marsh Award for translated children’s literature and selected by David Cadji-Newby as one of the top ten children’s books for The Guardian (2 April 2015).Footnote ¹¹³ Judges for the Marsh Award describe the story as having “[s]nappy dialogue, lyrical asides, and a strong narrative embodying a timeless message.”Footnote ¹¹⁴ The publishers also have ties to Iran. The translation was discussed in the Sharq newspaper (19 April 2015) by the Persian publication editor Ali Seidadbadi.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Nazar Publisher puts an award sticker (for The Guardian endorsement that Tiny Owl received) on its Persian-language edition of the book.

Rassi and Tiny Owl cast the Iranian story as a tale that deals with “universal themes such as love, friendship and freedom, and a greater awareness of the diverse and colourful world.”Footnote ¹¹⁶ On the back cover, it is written that Little Black Fish “wants to explore the wider world” and in the “About the book” we read it is “about a fish daring to mix with other kinds of creatures and other ways of life.” To strengthen the positive message, Rassi also adds such sentences as “the more that Little Black Fish found out about the world, the more he realized that it was a dangerous as well as beautiful place.”Footnote ¹¹⁷ Her translation encourages diversity, freedom, and co-existence.

Tiny Owl is sympathetic to Iranians’ struggle for freedom and acceptance. But the book is not meant as a tool to educate the young for a new Iranian revolution. Rassi adds that the fish fear others’ judgement and being “different.”Footnote ¹¹⁸ Like Little Black Fish, Behrangi is also described as someone who “dare[d] to be politically different”Footnote ¹¹⁹ and his death is reported as only “rumoured to have been ordered by the Iranian government.”Footnote ¹²⁰ Tiny Owl wants to bridge cultures and publish positive universal stories with a message of liberal democracy and acceptance that is aligned with the cosmopolitan experience of immigrants. In an interview published in the online magazine Mirrors Windows Doors (8 January 2016), Ghanimifard contends that Tiny Owl’s “books illustrate a different image of Iran from the one you see in the news and in the media.” For her, “[c]hildren’s books are the best messengers of peace and understanding.”Footnote ¹²¹ Osman Coban, reviewing The Little Black Fish for the International Board on Books for Young People Link (February 2017), confirms a similar vision, writing, “Considering the violence expressed against different ethnic groups within societies in the wider world, the message of this book is important for the peaceful coexistence of today’s diverse world.”Footnote ¹²²

What I hope to have shown is that the different retranslations reflect the impact of the United States’ engagement in the Middle East, the influence of Middle East studies, the Islamic Revolution, the negative ideological discourse about Iran, and the growing Iranian diaspora. The result of this study also shows that retranslations of The Little Black Fish did not actually follow the original retranslation hypothesis. In fact, the extrication of the story from its revolutionary application freed the translators to look at the book as a universal story and to domesticate it for the children of the target culture. Ultimately, each retranslation has fostered a different reading of the book as a revolutionary text or political allegory, a literary work or modern fable, a source for learning about Iran and the Persian language, and a coming-of-age tale or a children’s book that speaks to the experience of immigrants. All the different approaches are the result of the translators’ interests as well as the cultural and political ideological discourses of their time.Footnote ¹²³

Before the revolution, Behrangi’s story had been translated more than any other modern Iranian story and was hailed as a major revolutionary and literary work. But its literary reputation has declined and Behrangi’s standing as a revolutionary martyr minimized. The work is missing from English anthologies of modern Persian literature and no recent scholarly work on Behrangi has been conducted in English. Yet, as the number of retranslations show, his story continues to play a prominent role in the Iranian immigrant community. More recently, it has been reintroduced by Iranian immigrants as a nostalgic reminder of growing up during the revolution and as an inspiring domesticated children’s book with colorful illustrations that can be seen to champion liberal democracy and cosmopolitanism. The domestication strategies of such publishers as Tiny Owl can thus be seen as a gesture to promote Iranians’ integration and acceptance in the target culture.