The symbol " نيلوفر کبود " (niloufar-e kabud) in Sadegh Hedayat's novel The Blind Owl and its translation into English by Iraj Bashiri

Translating symbols is a challenging task for translators, who must capture and convey the essence of the source text through the means of another language and culture. In Sadegh Hedayat's novel The Blind Owl, the symbol "niloufar-e kabud" is of paramount importance, as it appears in a key scene and becomes a recurring motif throughout the narrative. This article examines the transformations this symbolic image underwent in Iraj Bashiri's English translation of the novel. In Hedayat's novel, the "niloufar-e kabud" is ambivalent, embodying a fusion of opposites: high and low, beautiful and ugly, innocence and depravity, bliss and pain, vitality and mortal threat, death and immortality, Iran's majestic past and its suffocating present. Its semantic field encompasses the ornamentation of ancient Iranian art, a longing for an unattainable ideal, the charm of antiquity, the pain of losing touch with it, images of grief, bruises, mental wounds, handicapped hands and feet, suffocation, lifelessness, and death. In his translation, Bashiri employs "black lily" as an equivalent for "niloufar-e kabud." He integrates the lily into his interpretive framework of Hedayat's complex, multi-layered novel - an interpretation that many researchers find controversial and one that arguably captures only a single semantic layer of the original. The chosen image does resonate with Hedayat's concept to a significant degree, particularly when considering the symbolic weight of the lily, and specifically the black lily, across both Eastern and Western traditions. Both the lotus and the lily are ambivalent symbols, sharing numerous associations and ritual functions. However, the original "niloufar e-kabud" is a non-existent flower, an integral part of the mystical, unearthly woman's image. In contrast, the black lily is a real flower, and its very tangibility diminishes part of the mystical aura. The image of the lily does not evoke the connection to ancient Iranian art and the glorious history of Persia. Finally, for the Western reader, the lily evokes connotations - such as the Virgin Mary, the Annunciation, and royal power - that are distinct from the cultural and symbolic framework intended by Hedayat and navigated by a translator working at the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures.

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