There were some major difficulties in working out an
English-based equivalent of Prostitution. By using an Algerian setting and
Arabic vernacular to great subversive effect, Guyotat was relying on
France’s revulsion for its colonial past, it’s guilt about the Algerian War,
and its panic about the increasing Arab immigration. My staying with the
North African orientation would have distanced this text from American
readers. Consequently, I made the bold decision to transpose the setting to
an unidentified Caribbean location and shifted the linguistic emphasis from
French-Arabic to “Spanglish”. Bruce Benderson
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