Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described him as a writer “who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind”. Mahfouz is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers in Arabic literature, along with Taha Hussein, to explore themes of existentialism. He is the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 screenplays, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004. All of his novels take place in Egypt, and always mentions the lane, which equals the world. His most famous works include The Cairo Trilogy and Children of Gebelawi. Many of Mahfouz's works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films; no Arab writer exceeds Mahfouz in number of works that have been adapted for cinema and television. While Mahfouz's literature is classified as realist literature, existential themes appear in it.
Denys Johnson-Davies was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and Syrian author Zakaria Tamer.
Bensalem Himmich is a Moroccan novelist, poet and philosopher with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Paris, who teaches at the Mohammed V University, Rabat. He served as Minister of Culture from 29 July 2009 to 3 January 2012.
Aida Adib Bamia is professor emeritus of Arabic language and literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She is a specialist in North African literature. Her work on Arabic literature has helped to bring quality translations to English readers.
The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature is a literary award for Arabic literature. It is given to the best contemporary novel written in Arabic, but not available in English translation. The winning book is then translated into English, and published by American University in Cairo Press. It was first awarded in 1996 and is presented annually on December 11, the birthday of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, by the President of the American University in Cairo.
The Banipal Prize, officially the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, is an annual prize awarded to a translator for the published English translation of a full-length literary work in the Arabic language. The prize was inaugurated in 2006 by the literary magazine Banipal, which promotes the diffusion of contemporary Arabic literature through English translations and the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature. It is administered by the Society of Authors in the UK, and the prize money is sponsored by Omar Saif Ghobash and his family in memory of Ghobash's late father Saif Ghobash. As of 2009, the prize money amounted to £3000.
Humphrey T. Davies was a British translator of Arabic fiction, historical and classical texts. Born in Great Britain, he studied Arabic in college and graduate school. He worked for decades in the Arab world and was based in Cairo from the late 20th century to 2021. He translated at least 18 Arabic works into English, including contemporary literature. He is a two-time winner of the Banipal Prize.
William Maynard Hutchins is an American academic, author and translator of contemporary Arabic literature. He was formerly a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
Somaya Yehia Ramadan was an Egyptian academic, translator and writer. She is mainly known for her 2001 novel Awraq Al-Nargis, published in English as Leaves of Narcissus that won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and for her Arabic translation of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
Hamdi Abu Golayyel was an Egyptian writer. The author of several novels and collections of short stories, he is known as one of the new voices in Egyptian fiction. Among other awards, he won the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation in 2022. The literary magazine ArabLit called him a "chronicler of the lives of Egypt’s marginalized and working-class."
Edwar al-Kharrat was an Egyptian novelist, writer and critic.
Anthony Calderbank is an English translator of contemporary Arabic literature. He was educated at Manchester University, where he studied Arabic and Persian. He lived in Egypt for several years in the mid-1980s, making his home in the Cairo neighbourhood of Shubra. From 1987 to 1990, he lived in England teaching Arabic at Salford University, before he finally moved back again to Egypt, taking up a teaching post at the American University in Cairo. From 2000, Calderbank worked for the British Council in Saudi Arabia, living in Khobar and Riyadh. Most recently, Calderbank became Country Director of the British Council in the new state of South Sudan.
Ibrahim Aslan was an Egyptian novelist and short story writer.
maia tabet is an Arabic-English literary translator with a background in editing and journalism. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1956, she was raised in Lebanon, India, and England. She studied philosophy and political science at the American University of Beirut and lives between the United States and Cyprus.
Werner Mark Linz was a German-American publisher who specialised in educational and international publishing in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. He was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1935. He studied humanities at the University of Frankfurt and continued his education in the United States. In 1960 he moved permanently to New York and became a naturalised United States citizen.
Hammour Ziada is a Sudanese writer and journalist, born in Omdurman. He has worked as a civil society and human rights researcher, and currently works as journalist in Cairo. Before, he had been writing for a number of left-wing newspapers in Sudan. Two of his novels were selected for Arabic literary awards and appeared in English translations.
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer. His work explores language and identity in the context of Cairo, and reflects connections with the Arab-Islamic canon and world literature. He has worked in many genres in both Arabic and English, and is known for his essays and poems as well as his novels.
Adel Esmat is an Egyptian novelist who was born in 1959. He published a collection of short stories named Fragments and nine novels including Days of the Blue Windows, published in 2009, which was awarded the State Prize for Incentive for Novels in 2011. Whereas, his novel Tales of Yusuf Tadrus, which was published in 2015, won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2016 and later the American University of Cairo published an English translation of the novel.
Velvet is an Arabic language novel by Palestinian author Huzama Habayeb published in 2016. The book won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2017. The novel depicts several Palestinian women experiencing tragic love stories under the compelling circumstances and within the ultraconservative community of Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan.
Roger Allen is an English scholar of Arabic literature. He has translated several Arabic works of literature into English, and has also written scholarly works on Arabic literature.
