Anthony Calderbank is an English translator of contemporary Arabic literature. [1] 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. [2] Most recently, Calderbank became Country Director of the British Council in the new state of South Sudan. [3]
Calderbank has translated a number of works from the Arabic literary canon into English. [4] These include:
His work has appeared in several issues of Banipal magazine. [1]
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.
Sudanese literature consists of both oral as well as written works of fiction and nonfiction that were created during the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the territory of what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the independent country's history since 1956 as well as its changing geographical scope in the 21st century.
Hoda Barakat is an award-winning Lebanese novelist. She lived most of her early life in Beirut before moving to Paris, where she now resides. She has published six novels, two plays, a book of short stories, and a book of memoirs. Her works are originally written in Arabic and have been translated into English, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Romanian, Dutch, and Greek.
Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year. Since its inception, it has published works and interviews of numerous Arab authors and poets, many of them translated for the first time into English. It is also co-sponsor of the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
The American University in Cairo Press is the leading English-language publisher in the Middle East.
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, whose full name is 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 has worked for decades in the Arab world and been based in Cairo since the late 20th century. He has translated at least 18 Arabic works into English, including contemporary literature. He is a two-time winner of the Banipal Prize.
Yahya Taher Abdullah
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.
Miral al-Tahawy, also known as Miral Mahgoub, is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer. She comes from a conservative Bedouin background and is regarded as a pioneering literary figure. The Washington Post has described her as "the first novelist to present Egyptian Bedouin life beyond stereotypes and to illustrate the crises of Bedouin women and their urge to break free."
Samah Selim is an Egyptian scholar and translator of Arabic literature. She studied English literature at Barnard College, and obtained her PhD from Columbia University in 1997. At present she is an associate professor at the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She has also taught at Columbia, Princeton and Aix-en-Provence universities.
Edwar al-Kharrat was an Egyptian novelist, writer and critic.
Marilyn Louise Booth is an author, scholar and translator of Arabic literature. Since 2015, she has been the Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa, pen name Farouk Abdel Wahab, was an Egyptian academic and translator based in the USA. He was born in Tanta and studied at the University of Cairo. He received a BA degree in 1962 and an MA in English literature in 1969. He pursued doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, obtaining a PhD in comparative literature in 1977. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1975 until his death. He was the first occupant of the university's Ibn Rushd Professorial Lectureship in Modern Arabic Language, and was also the Associate Director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Paul Starkey is a British scholar and translator of Arabic literature.
Nariman Youssef is an Egyptian translator. She obtained a BSc in computer science from the American University in Cairo before moving to the UK for graduate studies. She has master's degrees from Birkbeck College and the University of Edinburgh, and is currently a doctoral candidate at Manchester University. She is affiliated with CASAW.
Ibrahim Aslan was an Egyptian novelist and short story writer.
Rania Ali Musa Mamoun is a Sudanese journalist and fiction writer, known for her novels and short stories. She was born in the city of Wad Medani in east-central Sudan, and was educated at the University of Gezira.
Brooklyn Heights is the fourth novel by Egyptian writer Miral al-Tahawy. It was shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize for 2011 and won the 2010 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature The novel, released in Arabic in 2010, was published in an English translation by Sameh Salim from the American University in Cairo Press the following year. Al-Tahawy holds a doctorate in Arabic literature from Cairo University and teaches at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona.