Balancing Cultural Adaptation and Fidelity in Kachachi's 'The American Granddaughter' using Venuti's Dichotomy

This paper explores selected excerpts from the translated version of Iraqi novelist Inaam Kachachi's novel Al-Hafeeda Al-Amerīkyya, which was translated into English as The American Granddaughter, in terms of its description of culturally specific references that were translated into English and evaluated from the perspective of Lawrence Venuti's dichotomy of foreignization and domestication (1995). The study will emphasize the difficulties of the translation of Iraqi dialect expressions and the translation of culturally marked vocabulary, where a translation is typically not simple or direct. The analysis shows that the decision of the translator to save the cultural specificity of the original (foreignization) or to adapt it to the standards of the new cultural audience (domestication) has a prominent influence on the presentation of the tone, meaning, and the very image of the cultural identity of the novel under consideration. The research highlights the importance of assigning such culturally rich texts to translators who possess a profound aptitude in language and knowledge about a particular culture, and ensures that the target audience can gauge not only the authenticity of the narrative but also the intended readability.