Barbara Romaine (born 1959) is an academic and translator of Arabic literature. [1] From 2008 to 2021 she taught in the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University, where she also edited a periodical, Writing in Tongues: A Global Interdisciplinary Journal. Romaine has translated a number of literary works from Arabic to English. These include:
Romaine trained as a classicist. In 1987 she was sent to Egypt to research Roman sites in and around the city of Alexandria. Fascinated by the Arabic language, over the next six years she attended university extension classes, two intensive (full-immersion) summers at Middlebury College, and a year on fellowship at the American University in Cairo (1992-1993). She taught Arabic at the College of William and Mary from 1993 to 1996; she has since taught at Middlebury College, the University of Pennsylvania, Washington College, Swarthmore College, Princeton University, and Villanova University, among other institutions. [2]
Romaine won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 2007 to facilitate her translation of Spectres and was named runner-up for the 2011 Banipal Prize for the same book. She was awarded a second NEA fellowship for 2015, to support the translation of A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore.
Romaine has also published a number of shorter translations, including short stories and selections from Abbasid poetry, in such literary journals as The St. Petersburg Review, Metamorphoses, and Pusteblume.
In 2018, Romaine published Write Arabic Now!: A Handwriting Workbook for Letters and Words (including handwritten models for Arabic script by Lana Iskandarani), with Georgetown University Press.
In December 2022, Romaine joined the adjunct faculty at New York University, serving as thesis reviewer for NYU’s Master’s in Translation & Interpretation program.
Hoda Barakat is a 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, Brazilian Portuguese, and Greek.
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 American University in Cairo Press is the leading English-language publisher in the Middle East.
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.
Nabila Muhsin Ali al-Zubayr is a Yemeni poet and novelist. She was born in the village of al-Hagara in the Haraz region and studied at the University of Sanaa, obtaining a BA in psychology. In the past, she has been a regular contributor to Yemeni journals al-Thawra, al-'Uruba, al-Mithaq and al-Mar'a. Her first book of poems titled Mutawaliyat al-kidhba al-ra'i'a was published in Damascus in 1990. She has published further volumes of poetry since.
Radwa Ashour was an Egyptian novelist.
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.
Yasmeen Hanoosh is an academic, fiction writer, and translator from Iraq. She was born in Basra in 1978. She moved to the United States in 1995, subsequently obtaining a BA, MA and PhD from the University of Michigan. The title of her doctoral thesis, submitted in 2008, was "The Politics of Minority: Chaldeans between Iraq and America". She is currently a professor of Arabic at Portland State University.
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.
Issa J. Boullata was a Palestinian scholar, writer, and translator of Arabic literature.
Hoda Elsadda is Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Manchester. She serves as Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW) in the UK, Associate Editor of the Online Edition of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, member of the Board of Directors of the Global Fund for Women, member of the Advisory Board of the Durham Modern Languages Series, and Core Group Member of the Arab Families Working Group. Elsadda is also the Co-founder and current Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Women and Memory Forum.
Michelle Hartman is an academic and translator. She obtained a BA from Columbia College in 1993 and a DPhil from Oxford University in 1998. She is currently a professor of Arabic and francophone literature at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. She is the author of a number of academic papers and several monographs including "Breaking Broken English: Black Arab Literary Solidarities and the Politics of Language", which won the College Language Association award for creative scholarship in 2020. She is also a translator of contemporary Arabic literature, and has translated twelve novels and a short story collection, including Iman Humaydan Younes’s Wild Mulberries and "The Weight of Paradise", and Alexandra Chreiteh's Always Coca-Cola and Ali and His Russian Mother, Shahla Ujayli's "Summer with the Enemy" and "A Sky So Close to Us" and Jana Elhassan's "The 99th Floor" and "All the Women Inside Me" among others. Wild Mulberries was shortlisted for the 2009 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
William Granara is an American author, translator and scholar of Arabic language and literature. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania, obtaining his PhD from the latter in Arabic and Islamic studies. He has worked for the American University in Cairo and for the US State Department in Tunis. He is currently director of the Arabic language program at Harvard University.
Ferial Jabouri Ghazoul is an Iraqi scholar, critic, and translator. She was educated in Iraq, Lebanon, Britain, France, and the USA. She obtained her PhD in comparative literature from Columbia University in 1978. Currently, she is chair and professor of English and comparative literature at the American University in Cairo.
Nora Amin is an Egyptian novelist, short story writer, and translator.
Najwa Bin Shatwan is a Libyan academic and novelist, the first Libyan to ever be shortlisted for the International Prize of Arabic Fiction. She has authored four novels: Waber Al Ahssina ; Madmum Burtuqali ; Zareeb Al-Abeed ; and Roma Termini, in addition to several collections of short stories, plays and contributions to anthologies. She was chosen as one of the thirty-nine best Arab authors under the age of forty by Hay Festival’s Beirut 39 project (2009). In 2018, she was chosen from hundreds of Arab writers for the 2018 Banipal Writing Fellowship Residency at the University of Durham and in 2020, she was chosen to co-lead a series of creative writing workshops in Sharjah for Arab writers. Also, she was chosen as a member of jury in various literary awards/grants.
Samīra al-Māni' is an Iraqi writer.
Elisabeth Jaquette is an American translator of modern Arabic literature. Her work has been shortlisted for the National Book Award and TA First Translation Prize, and supported by the Jan Michalski Foundation, the PEN/Heim Translation Fund, and several English PEN Translates Awards. She has a BA from Swarthmore College and an MA from Columbia University and was a CASA Fellow at The American University in Cairo. She is also Executive Director of the American Literary Translators Association.
Adil Babikir is a Sudanese literary critic and translator into and out of English and Arabic. He has translated several novels, short stories and poems by renowned Sudanese writers and edited the anthology Modern Sudanese Poetry. He lives and works in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.