Translation in Don Quixote

Don Quixote as the founding novel is recounted by Cide Hamete Benengeli, Moorish and Spanish (Manchegan) historian, through the mediated work of the morisco-aljamiado (translator). Few scholarly works have in fact been devoted to this latter aspect of the novel amongst the tens of thousands devoted to the novel per se. That the founding novel is recounted by a Moor/Arab in Arabic thanks to a translator, in Toledo, is a huge claim which has passed almost unnoticed for some reason or other. This paper will try to shed light on the presence of translation and the translator in Cervantes’s novel.