The Unintended Gift: The Adventures of Hajji Baba Ispahani as a Transactional Text Between English and Persian Literatures1

The value of literary translations such as Mīrzāabīb Ifahānīʹs translation of James Morierʹs The Adventures of Hajji Baba Ispahani must be understood as determined by the interrelated issues of inter-cultural power dynamics and the construction of literary value in the social contexts of both their origins and their destinations. Thus, we may consider this kind of inter-cultural literary relationship as a form of transaction, with texts and readings measured by both a system of values, and one of costs. This article follows the history of the production of Hajji Baba, through its translation into Persian, and examines its possible value within the social context of the Iranian constitutional revolution. It ends by proposing a possible homophony between the British colonial imaginary and the reformist nationalist discourses foundational to the constitutional revolution, despite the contradictions that remain unresolved with a text that has been accorded high value—if through transaction—within both of these contexts.