Click the image to watch the video of

the free online celebration of

the 2022 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize

that took place on 9 February 2023.

- - - - - - - - -

Announcing joint winners

HUMPHREY DAVIES and ROBIN MOGER

                                          

The 2022 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation is to be shared between two joint winners: 

 

– the late HUMPHREY DAVIES for his translation of The Men Who Swallowed the Sun by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, published by Hoopoe Fiction

– ROBIN MOGER for his translation of Slipping by Mohamed Kheir, published by Two Lines Press.

 

The judges in this 17th year of the Prize:

         

CHARIS OLSZOK (Chair), Associate Professor, Modern Arabic Literature, University of Cambridge; 

KATHARINE HALLS, translator of fiction & plays, joint winner of 2017 Sheikh Hamad Translation Award; 

SUSHEILA NASTA MBE, Wasafiri magazine founder, Professor Emerita Queen Mary College & the Open University, Royal Society of Literature Council Member, Honorary Fellow, the English Association;

BECKI MADDOCK, Banipal Trustee, toponymist, linguist, translator, Royal Geographical Society Fellow.

• For more information on the judging panel, click here.

  

THE JUDGES’ REPORT

A joint award seemed the best way to honour two extremely strong novels which each distinguished themselves in different ways: Slipping for its elegance and flow, and The Men Who Swallowed the Sun for the impressive skill and creativity involved in tackling such a dense and complex text written in non-standard Arabic.

Published in Arabic in 2018, the novels represent exciting new directions in Arabic literature, both through their divergencies and their surprising synergies, unearthing forgotten, baffling, and painfully absurd histories, broaching the topic of illegal migration, and doing so through narrators who upset, challenge, and force their reader to see the world anew.

 

JOINT WINNER – HUMPHREY DAVIES
for his translation of

The Men Who Swallowed the Sun 
by Hamdi Abu Golayyel

 

Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is a harsh, gritty tale of migration in pursuit of a better life, switching between registers of Arabic through the intimate and irreverent voice of its narrator, as we move from Egypt’s Western Desert to Sabha in the South of Libya, across the Mediterranean to Italy. The novel has overtones of the Arabic oral epic and of the picaresque, through which it traces marginal, forgotten, and uncomfortable histories with sly wit. The richness of the language stretches from the nuances of dialect, proverbs, and colloquialisms, to clever wordplay within Modern Standard Arabic. Humphrey Davies handles this richness with aplomb, conveying the narrator’s chattiness and scattered thoughts, alongside moments of fraught action, and shifts to historical and personal memories. 

It is a magnificent achievement to have brought this novel to English with such flair. The cultural specificities and idiosyncrasies of the original are conveyed, while the translation remains a gripping and vivid read thanks to Davies’s profound knowledge of Arabic, and creative talent in finding solutions to the most demanding challenges.

Hoopoe Fiction, imprint of AUC Press (1 Mar. 2022)
Pbk: ISBN 9781649030948 • 216 pp • £11.99 / $18.95
Hbk: ISBN 9781649031990 • 216 pp • £43.80 / $52.99
eBook: ISBN 9780815655398 • £10.66 / $17.84 |

 

Reactions from publisher, author, and the late translator's family

Nadine El-Hadi, Acquisitions Editor, Hoopoe Fiction:

"Humphrey Davies’s adept and eloquent translation of Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s ingenious novel The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is a real feat, conveying seamlessly all the many complex layers and levels of language into flowing, effortless prose. We are delighted that he has been honored with this prize, a fitting tribute to his impressive skill and legacy in the field of Arabic literature in translation."

Hamdi Abu Golayyel:

"I was very happy about the Banipal prize. I felt that Humphrey Davies’s tremendous effort in translating it had found someone to appreciate it. It is rare these days for such great effort to find anyone to appreciate it, and Humphrey’s effort is truly tremendous. The Men who Swallowed the Sun, my bold linguistic adventure, is a cocktail of dialects – Cairene, Fayyoumi, Bedouin, Libyan and Egyptian, all of them dialects with no well-defined lexicon – as well as Italian. The novel in its original Arabic was not understood by some Egyptian or other Arab readers, and I believe that Humphrey’s translation will be easier to read, even for the Arab reader."

Hugh Davies, brother of the late Humphrey Davies:

“I was thrilled to receive the news that my beloved younger brother, Humphrey, is the joint winner of the 2022 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. As a non-Arabist I had not fully appreciated, till organising Humphrey’s memorials in London and Cairo in March last year, how distinguished a scholar he was in the field. From a standing start in 1965 with a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge to read English (a subject he quickly abandoned as ‘sterile’) he went on to achieve a first in Arabic studies in 1968. This was swiftly followed by a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Thenceforward, the Arabic language and its literature became his passion. But only in the last twenty-five years was he able to devote himself to translation which was prolific and ranged from classical texts and on down the centuries to contemporary novels. The family and I are delighted that he has, again, been recognised for his translation work by the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize."

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Humphrey Davies (1947–2021) was twice before the winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation (in 2006 and 2010 – the first and fifth years of the prize) and twice runner-up (in 2010 and 2012), as well as being a judge for the 2013 prize, which has been only other time joint winners have been announced. He started translating in 1997, with his first translation, a short story Rat by Sayed Ragab, being published in Banipal 14 in 2002. He has translated some thirty book-length works from Arabic, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hamdi Abu Golayyel, born in Fayoum, Egypt, in 1967, is a writer and a journalist. He is the author of numerous short story collections and novels, including Thieves in Retirement and A Dog with No Tail, which was awarded the 2018 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. He is editor-in-chief of the Popular Studies series, which specializes in folklore research, and writes for Arabic news outlets, such as al-Ittihad and al-Safir. 

 * * *

 

JOINT WINNER – ROBIN MOGER
for his translation of 

Slipping
by Mohamed Kheir

 

In Slipping, a journalist, Seif, is taken on a surreal, disturbing, yet incandescent tour of Egypt to witness events and sights magical and impossible. In the wake of the Arab Spring, the journey shifts from exterior to interior, exploring Seif’s past; his relationships, disappointments, and traumas. The result is a ghostly tour, shifting between life and death, and reality and imagination. Kheir’s first novel to be translated into English, Slipping provides a stunning introduction for Anglophone readers to this poet, short story writer, and novelist. Robin Moger’s translation captures the sense of movement and electric aliveness of the original. Each image of this enigmatic, vivid, and captivating novel shimmers in English as it does in Arabic, through Moger’s rendering of Kheir’s economic and poetic brilliance. The clamour of the city resounds alongside the surreal quiet, as the novel slips between genres and voices, between absurdity, dystopia, and the sublime. Moger captures this slippage, alongside the melancholy of the original, and the moments of sharp, sweet humour.

Two Lines Press (8 June, 2021)
Pbk: ISBN 9781949641165 • 187 pp • £14.63 / $16.95
eBook • £8.95 / $9/49

Reactions from the author and the translator

Author Mohamed Kheir:

“There are many reasons for my feeling of happiness that Slipping has won the prize – it is my first work translated into English, it was done with great effort by the wonderful Robin Moger, and with great care by Two Lines Press. Just to be shortlisted was great, so nothing can describe my happiness at winning the award and Robin getting the recognition he deserves. Hopefully it will lead to many more readers of Slipping, and who knows, to its translation into even more languages. Thank you.” 

Translator Robin Moger:

“I’m really delighted that Mohamed Kheir’s Slipping has won the translation prize alongside Humphrey Davies’s translation of the wonderful The Men who Swallowed the Sun by Hamdi Abu Golayyel: a pair of magical, strange and exciting narratives that make the happiest bedfellows. I hope this leads more people to read more of both of these authors. Many thanks to the wonderful Two Lines Press, in particular the book’s editor C J Evans, for making this translation a thing in the world and for making it so beautifully. But the most thanks, of course, go to Mohamed.”

 

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Robin Moger is an award-winning translator of contemporary Arabic prose and poetry into English, currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize in 2017 for his translation of The Book of Safety by Yasser Abdel Hafez (Hoopoe Fiction 2017). His translations of fiction and prose works include The Book of Sleep by Haytham El Wardany (Seagull Books, 2020), Iman Mersal’s How To Mend: Motherhood and its Ghosts (Kayfa ta, 2018), Yasser Abdellatif’s The Law of Inheritance (Seagull Books, 2018), All The Battles by Maan Abu Taleb (Hoopoe Fiction, 2017), Nael Eltoukhy’s The Women of Karantina (AUC Press) and Youssef Rakha’s The Crocodiles (7 Stories Press, 2014).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mohamed Kheir is a novelist, poet, short story writer, journalist, and lyricist. His short story collections Remsh Al Ein (2016) and Afarit Al Radio (2011) both received The Sawiris Cultural Award, and Leil Khargi (2001) was awarded the Egyptian Ministry of Culture Award for poetry. Slipping (Eflat Al Asabea), Kotob KhanPublishing House, 2018; Two Lines Press, 2021) is his second novel and his first to be translated into English. He lives in Egypt.

 * * * 

CELEBRATING THE AWARD

This announcement follows the shortlist announcement on 1 December 2022. The award of £3,000 will be divided equally between Humphrey Davies’s estate and Robin Moger and will be awarded by the Society of Authors, the administrator of the prize. 

The Translation Prizes Award Ceremony, hosted by the Society of Authors, will take place on 8 February 2023 at the British Library, London, and will award the following prizes: the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize (Arabic), the Scott Moncrieff Prize (French), the Schlegel-Tieck Prize (German), the TLS-Risa Domb/Porjes Prize (Hebrew), the John Florio Prize (Italian), the Premio Valle Inclán (Spanish), and the Translators’ Association First Translation Prize (debut translation from any language into English).

The Banipal Trust for Arab Literature’s celebration of the 2022 joint winners takes place the following day, an online event on Thursday 9 February at 6.00pm GMT owing to the participants being unable to travel to London. It will comprise a discussion along with readings in both languages and a Q&A session.

                * * *                  

The Shortlist, announced on 1 December 2022

 

The Shortlist Report of the Judges

Charis Olszok (Chair), Susheila Nasta, Katharine Halls and Becki Maddock

The 2022 prize received seventeen submissions, most of them novels, from across the Arab world. These reflect the great diversity of writing practices today, from lengthy historical novels, rich in material detail, to satires of recent history (noticeably the political intrigues of student movements), to gripping romances, and works of structural experimentation that ambitiously revisit events from the Palestinian nakba to the aftermath of the Arab Spring. From satirical short stories to poetry that stretches the limits of language and imagery, the list’s strength is in its creative breadth, and consistent quality.

The judges were initially asked to submit a list of their preferences for a longlist. This list, of twelve titles, was discussed in a meeting to ascertain a joint shortlist and winner. The length and complexity of this discussion reflected the incredible and varied strengths of the works submitted, which proved hard to narrow down. Judges were torn between the ambition of the original work, the accuracy and flair of the translation, and the range of literary genres and styles with which they were presented. While the works proved hard to narrow down, the judges consistently agreed on the outstanding strengths of three works, selected for the shortlist, which offers an exciting snapshot of the generically and stylistically diverse longlist, and one in which translation quality is at the very forefront.

Prof. Susheila Nasta commented that, “At its most powerful literature should act as an imaginative passport into other worlds, a conduit to take us inside the lives of others, inviting us for a moment to stay and be part of an unknown world. Words transport as do good translations. At their best translations also take us elsewhere, offering readers stories in cultural landscapes they would not otherwise encounter. The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation makes this journey possible.”

The shortlisted works (in alphabetical order of translator) are:

 

.   .   

 

The Men Who Swallowed the Sun by Hamdi Abu Golayyel (Egypt)
Translated by Humphrey Davies
Publisher: Hoopoe Fiction (an imprint of AUC Press)

 

Hot Maroc by Yassin Adnan (Morocco)
Translated by Alexander E. Elinson
Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Slipping by Mohamed Kheir (Egypt)
Translated by Robin Moger
Publisher: Two Lines Press

************

The Men Who Swallowed the Sun

by Hamdi Abu Golayyel

translated by Humphrey Davies

 

"This translation is a feat of research, accuracy and creativity"

Hoopoe Fiction, imprint of AUC Press (1 Mar. 2022)
Pbk: ISBN 9781649030948 • 216 pp • £11.99 / $18.95 • Hbk: ISBN 9781649031990 • 216 pp • £43.80 / $52.99 • eBook: ISBN 9780815655398 • £10.66 / $17.84 |

 

Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is a harsh, gritty tale of migration in pursuit of a better life, switching between registers of Arabic through the intimate and irreverent voice of its narrator, as we move from Egypt’s Western Desert to Sabha in the South of Libya, across the Mediterranean to Italy. The novel has overtones of the Arabic oral epic and of the picaresque, through which it traces marginal, forgotten, and uncomfortable histories with sly wit. The richness of the language stretches from the nuances of dialect, proverbs, and colloquialisms, to clever wordplay within Modern Standard Arabic. Humphrey Davies handles this richness with aplomb, conveying the narrator’s chattiness and scattered thoughts, alongside moments of fraught action, and shifts to historical and personal memories. It is a magnificent achievement to have brought this novel to English with such flair. The cultural specificities and idiosyncrasies of the original are conveyed, while the translation remains a gripping and vivid read thanks to Davies’ profound knowledge of Arabic, and creative talent in finding solutions to the most demanding challenges.

“The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is a phenomenal translation of a unique and exciting novel about a young Bedouin from Egypt who migrates to Libya under Gaddafi, and then onwards to Italy, hoping to make big bucks, have a good time, and avoid getting sent back to Egypt. The dense, stream-of-consciousness narration of its unlikeable but undeniably charismatic protagonist drags the reader immediately into the gritty surroundings that form the backdrop of this picaresque quest, and Humphrey Davies’s rendering impressively recreates the original’s effect. It was clearly a challenging task, for example, to tackle the hero’s Bedouin dialect and the jargon associated with each more or less criminal waystation on his madcap journey, and to accurately capture the book’s wide-ranging geographical, historical and cultural references. Judged on its technical merits, this translation is a feat of research, accuracy and creativity; judged on its literary merits, it is an unusual and exhilarating book which will certainly enrich the Anglophone literary landscape” (Katharine Halls, Prize Judge, 2022).

Hamdi Abu Golayyel, born in Fayoum, Egypt, in 1967, is a writer and a journalist. He is the author of numerous short story collections and novels, including Thieves in Retirement and A Dog with No Tail, which was awarded the 2018 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. He is editor-in-chief of the Popular Studies series, which specializes in folklore research, and writes for Arabic news outlets, such as al-Ittihad and al-Safir.

Humphrey Davies (1947–2021) translated some thirty book-length works from Arabic, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany, and was a two-time winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation (2006 and 2011).

************

 

Hot Maroc

by Yassin Adnan

translated by Alexander E. Elinson

“A vivid, satirical, and compelling panorama of Marrakesh’s changing landscape”

Syracuse University Press (30 May 2021)
Pbk: ISBN 9780815611356 • 424 pp • £23.95 / $29.95
eBook: ISBN 9780815655398 • £22.75 / $29.95 

Yassin Adnan’s Hot Maroc is a vivid, satirical, and compelling panorama of Marrakesh’s changing landscape, its student movements, political intrigue, and move into internet culture, through the perspective of Rahhal, the “squirrel”, who stumbles his way through society, before becoming an undercover digital sensation. Weaving vivid character portraits, and lively social worlds with black humour, the novel grips the reader from first to last. Alexander Elinson’s deft translation is highly enjoyable, conveying the original’s light tone, wit, and underlying darkness.

“Yassin Adnan’s amusing satire is an ambitious and wide-ranging novel. It has been skilfully translated by Alexander Elinson, who has produced a very readable novel in English, while also retaining a little of the Arabic style and flavour. Language is a topic on various levels within Adnan’s novel, which employs different registers of Arabic including colloquial Moroccan Darija alongside standard Arabic and classical Arabic, as studied by the protagonist.

“Through the life of the novel’s anti-hero, Rahhal, Adnan presents acute observations of human character and political shenanigans. Rahhal is simple, awkward and funny but also dangerous. But, like everyone else, he is just trying to survive. An original element of the comedy lies in the way Rahhal (The Squirrel) likens people’s characteristics to those of animals. He is married to a Hedgehog, his professor is an Elephant, and his university comrades include a Cow, a Lizard and some rats.

“The novel is a commentary on changing times in modern Morocco, chronicling the rise of the internet and the influence of media and the internet on society. In today’s world of fake news, the contrast between reality and people’s online personas and the manipulation of these by Rahhal and others seems particularly pertinent” (Becki Maddock, Prize Judge, 2022).

 

Yassin Adnan is a Moroccan writer, editor, and journalist. He is the editor of Marrakech Noir and the author of four books of poetry and three short story collections. Since 2006, he has researched and presented his weekly cultural TV program Masharef (Thresholds) on Morocco’s Channel One, and currently hosts the cultural Bayt Yassin (Yassin’s House) on Egypt’s Al-Ghad TV. Hot Maroc is his first novel.

Alexander E. Elinson is a scholar and translator. He teaches Arabic Language and Literature at Hunter College/CUNY and his research interests cut across the Middle East and North Africa, including Arabic and Hebrew literature from the Andalusi to the contemporary period. His current research is on language change and the use of Moroccan Arabic in writing. His previous translations include Youssef Fadel’s novels A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me – shortlisted for the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize – and A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me, as well as Allal Bourqia’s short story “A Noisy Disappearance in an Ill-Reputed Alley” in Marrakech Noir.

 

************

Slipping

by Mohamed Kheir

translated by Robin Moger

 

"A subtle, evocative, and moving portrait of Cairo and Alexandria post-revolution"

Two Lines Press (8 June, 2021)
Pbk: ISBN 9781949641165 • 187 pp • £14.63 / $16.95 • eBook • £8.95 / $9/49

In Slipping, a journalist, Seif, is taken on a surreal, disturbing, yet incandescent tour of Egypt to witness events and sights magical and impossible. In the wake of the Arab Spring, the journey shifts from exterior to interior, exploring Seif’s past; his relationships, disappointments, and traumas. The result is a ghostly tour, shifting between life and death, and reality and imagination. Kheir’s first novel to be translated into English, Slipping provides a stunning introduction for Anglophone readers to this poet, short story writer, and novelist. Robin Moger’s translation captures the sense of movement and electric aliveness of the original. Each image of this enigmatic, vivid, and captivating novel shimmers in English as it does in Arabic, through Moger’s rendering of Kheir’s economic and poetic brilliance. The clamour of the city resounds alongside the surreal quiet, as the novel slips between genres and voices, between absurdity, dystopia, and the sublime. Moger captures this slippage, alongside the melancholy of the original, and the moments of sharp, sweet humour.

“A subtle, evocative, and moving portrait of Cairo and Alexandria post-revolution and the psychological aftermath of the Arab Spring. Like the two main characters, Seif and Bahr, a struggling journalist and former exile, we are thrown into an almost apocalyptic world rendered deliberately unstable and disorientating. On the one hand, it is a threatening landscape of broken promises and shattered dreams; on the other the worlds of its two protagonists literally slip seamlessly between reality, memory, myth, and dream. An impressive novel, all the more forceful as it does not directly engage with the pain of the political context that is its subject but instead portrays the strength of human resilience in the face of trauma and the transformative power of the imagination” (Susheila Nasta, Prize Judge, 2022).

 

Mohamed Kheir is a novelist, poet, short story writer, journalist, and lyricist. His short story collections Remsh Al Ein (2016) and Afarit Al Radio (2011) both received The Sawiris Cultural Award, and Leil Khargi (2001) was awarded the Egyptian Ministry of Culture Award for poetry. Slipping (Eflat Al Asabea, Kotob Khan Publishing House, 2018; Two Lines Press, 2021) is his second novel and his first to be translated into English. He lives in Egypt.

Robin Moger is an award-winning translator of contemporary Arabic prose and poetry into English, currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize in 2017 for his translation of The Book of Safety by Yasser Abdel Hafez (Hoopoe Fiction 2017). His translations of fiction and prose works include The Book of Sleep by Haytham El Wardany (Seagull Books, 2020), Iman Mersal’s How To Mend: Motherhood and its Ghosts (Kayfa ta, 2018), Yasser Abdellatif's The Law of Inheritance (Seagull Books, 2018), All The Battles by Maan Abu Taleb (Hoopoe Fiction, 2017), Nael Eltoukhy’s The Women of Karantina (AUC Press) and Youssef Rakha’s The Crocodiles (7 Stories Press, 2014).

THE JUDGES

               

Charis Olszok.  Katharine Halls.  Becki Maddock.  Susheila Nasta.

For all information about the judges, click here

************

Download a PDF of this shortlist announcement

 

************

 

ABOUT THE PRIZE
The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation is an annual award of £3,000, made to the translator(s) of a published translation in English of a full-length imaginative and creative Arabic work of literary merit published after, or during, the year 1967 and first published in English translation in the year prior to the award. The prize aims to raise the profile of contemporary Arabic literature as well as honouring the important role of individual translators in bringing the work of established and emerging Arab writers to the attention of the wider world.

It was the first prize in the world for published Arabic literary translation into English and was established by Banipal, the magazine of modern Arab literature in English translation, and the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature. The inaugural prize was awarded on 9 October 2006 and won by Humphrey Davies, whose death from cancer on 12 November 2021 is deeply mourned.

The prize is administered by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom, alongside the other UK prizes for literary translation, from languages that include Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. The prizes are awarded annually at a ceremony hosted by the Society of Authors.

The deadline for prize entries and publication of works each year is 31 March. For further history of the prize, more information about entries, judges, rules, and any other details, please go to: http://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/


THE SPONSOR
The prize is wholly sponsored by Omar Saif Ghobash and his family in memory of his father, the late Saif Ghobash, a man passionate about Arabic literature and other literatures of the world.

THE ANNUAL LECTURE
In 2015, to mark the tenth year of the prize, the family generously extended their sponsorship to the establishment of an annual lecture on literary translation. The seventh annual lecture took place on 10 November 2022, delivered by Hartmut Fähndrich under the title "St Jerome or St Christopher?".

With the lecture, the Banipal Trust looks forward to increasing support for the reading of literature from the Arab world in English translation, and to working with publishers, translators and booksellers to encourage and promote both the wider translation and wider availability of contemporary works of literature by Arab authors. For all information about the Annual Lecture see this link: https://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/lecture/ 

************

THE WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT
The 2022 Winner is expected to be announced by the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature in early January 2023. The Award Ceremony of all the translation prizes administered by the Society of Authors is expected to take place in person on 8 February 2023, with a Banipal celebration the following day. All details will be confirmed as soon as possible. 


CONTACT
To contact the Prize or the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature directly, email the Trust’s administrator on admin@banipaltrust.org.uk

************

The entries for the 2022 Prize

In the seventeenth year of the prize there are 17 entries by 13 different publishers. They comprise 14 novels, one poetry collection, and two collections of short stories. There are 21 authors (7 female and 14 male) in total, as one short story collection has six different authors. The entries are listed by title in alphabetical order of translator, with first translator listed when there are more than one. There are 18 translators altogether, 8 female and 10 male translators, some appearing more than once.

      

• Warda by Sonallah Ibrahim, translated by Hosam Aboul-Ela (Yale University Press)
• Fountain of the Drowning by Reem Bassiouney, translated by Roger Allen (Al-Sharq for Bookstores–DIWAN)
• The Men Who Swallowed the Sun by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, translated by Humphrey Davies (Hoopoe Fiction)

         

• The Lady of Zamalek by Ashraf El-Ashmawi, translated by Peter Daniel (Hoopoe Fiction)
• Hot Maroc by Yassin Adnan, translated by Alexander Elinson (Syracuse University Press)
• The Book Smuggler by Omaima Al-Khamis, translated by Sarah Enany (Hoopoe Fiction)

         

• Come, Take a Gentle Stab: Selected Poems by Salim Barakat, translated by Huda Fakhreddine & Jayson Iwen (Seagull Books)
• The Note of Darkness by Fajr Yacoub, translated by Azza Hassoun (Al Haderoun Publishing House)
• Ibn Arabi’s Small Death by Mohammed Hasan Alwan, translated by William M. Hutchins (The University of Texas Press)

         

• Catalogue of a Private Life by Najwa Bin Shatwan, translated by Sawad Hussain (Dedalus Books)
• The Dance of the Deep-Blue Scorpion by Akram Musallam, translated by Sawad Hussain (Seagull Books)
• Mo(a)t: Stories from Arabic by Najwa Binshatwan, Dr. Ishraga Mustafa Hamid, Mariem Hamoud, Ahmed Isselmou, Batoul Mahjoub, Arthur Gabriel Yak, translated by Sawad Hussain & Nariman Youssef (UEA University Publishing Project)

       

• The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout, translated by Karen McNeil & Miled Faiza (Europa Editions UK)
• Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy Al-Asheq, translated by Isis Nusair (Seagull Books)
• Slipping by Mohamed Kheir, translated by Robin Moger (Two Lines Press)

    

• Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price (World Editions)
• Roundabout of Death by Faysal Khartash, translated by Max Weiss (New Vessel Press\Head of Zeus)

* * *

The Prize is administered by the UK’s Society of Authors,
alongside nine other literary translation prizes.