ALGIERS, Nov 11 (KUNA) -- Two writers, Algerian and Tunisian, underlined Saturday the need to devise a strategy that ends up in coordinating and unifying the efforts made by the Arab translators.

Algerian writer Wasini Laraj said during a forum on translation in the Arab world organized by the National Library here, that the absence of coordination among the Arab cultural institutions has ended up in few, very few, translations.

He regretted the absence of a databank on the translators and the translations they completed. He said this ends up in the translation of one volume by more than one translator and deprives the reader from reading translations for other volumes.

He classified the Arab translation business into four classes. First the Moroccan group that kicked off in the seventies. Second the Gulf group based in the United Arab Emirates. Third the Egyptian group that started with the 1,000 volumes, and which the writer considered a success. Fourth the Middle East group including Syria, Lebanon and Jordan which he described as commercial and improper, though it links the reader with all the new issues.

Though there are good translators in Algeria, he said, they refuse to translate because there is no law to protect them.

Tunisian writer and professor, Ali Al-Suwaili, said translation started with the Abbasid era, adding that the Arabs were aware of the importance of translation which is not just translating the text as it is.

He said they have added to the translated text what conforms to the Arab religious and historic norms. He gave as an example a Tunisian translation for a French dictionary that included additions.

Writers call for devising unified Arab translation strategy