Dragomans: Ottoman court interpreters

In the conversation Iran After America (with Jonathan Shainin for Equator, August 1, 2026), Vali Nasr says:

The scholar Bernard Lewis wrote an essay once about the role of ‘dragomans’ – the Ottoman court interpreters and diplomatic intermediaries. He saw himself this way, as the translator of the Arabs into Western languages. I believe his whole enterprise was ultimately based on such colonial assumptions.

Many of the academics of my generation saw ourselves as dragomans of a more authentic sort than Lewis – though he might accuse us in turn of bias. I’m not claiming to have a monopoly on truth. But increasingly I became convinced of these distortions. It’s difficult, because I do not have charitable views of the Islamic Republic and the way it has ruled over Iran. But to have value, my writing has to be level-headed.

Dragomans were typically Ottoman Greeks who communicated with Europeans. (as per Wikipedia)

Here's Bernard Lewis's book, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East

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Here's Vali Nasr's book:

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I've published books, and my next one will be Attis & Aleph: Poems of the Daimonic. It's about a man in 1930s New York who was fascinated with what the idea of eunuchs meant to him. He couldn't finish writing his book, but I finished writing this one. It's advice to overthinkers. It talks about how to see your project in a new way and take the paths that will bring happiness and completion. I need your pledge on Attis & Aleph so that I can reach minimum funding and this book can happen!

It's part of the Book Bazaar 2026, a crowdfunding event on BackerKit, Oct 29–Nov 19.