The Translator is Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela's first novel, published in 1999. The Translator is a story about a young Muslim Sudanese widow living in Scotland without her son, and her blooming relationship with a secular Scottish Middle Eastern scholar. The novel takes place in both Khartoum and Aberdeen and was inspired partially by Aboulela's own experience moving between these two places. Aboulela refers to the novel and the main character Sammar as "a Muslim Jane Eyre".The novel focuses on issues of faith, cross-cultural romance, and the modernization of Sudan.