Aki Olavi Kaurismäki is a Finnish film director and screenwriter. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds (1996), The Man Without a Past (2002), Le Havre (2011), The Other Side of Hope (2017) and Fallen Leaves (2023), as well as Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). He has been described as Finland's best-known film director.
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (1990–2015) was a British literary award. It was inaugurated by British newspaper The Independent to honour contemporary fiction in translation in the United Kingdom. The award was first launched in 1990 and ran for five years before falling into abeyance. It was revived in 2001 with the financial support of Arts Council England. Beginning in 2011 the administration of the prize was taken over by BookTrust, but retaining the "Independent" in the name. In 2015, the award was disbanded in a "reconfiguration" in which it was merged with the Man Booker International Prize.
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), also known as "the Arabic Booker", is regarded as the most prestigious and important literary prize in the Arab world.
Nujoom Alghanem is an Emirati poet, artist and film director. She has published eight poetry collections and has directed more than twenty films. Alghanem is active in her community and is considered a well established writer and filmmaker in the Arab world. Her achievements in the arts have been recognized both nationally and internationally. She is the cofounder of Nahar Productions, a film production company based in Dubai. Currently she works as a professional mentor in filmmaking and creative writing, as well as a cultural and media consultant.
Sinan Antoon, is an Iraqi poet, novelist, scholar, and literary translator. He has been described as "one of the most acclaimed authors of the Arab world." Alberto Manguel described him as "one of the great fiction writers of our time.” He is an associate professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.
Ali Bader is an Iraqi novelist and a script writer, regarded as the most significant writer to emerge in Arabic world in the last decade. author of eighteen works of fiction, and several works of non-fiction. His best-known works include Papa Sartre, The Tobacco Keeper, The Running after the Wolves, and The Sinful Woman, several of which have won awards. His novels are quite unlike any other fictions in Arabic world of our day, as they blend character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, and explicit language. Bader was born in Baghdad, where he studied western philosophy and French literature. He now lives in Brussels.
Nouzad Ja'adan, is a Syrian poet and writer.
The Banipal Prize, officially the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, is an annual award presented to a translator for the published English translation of a full-length literary work in Arabic.
Wajdi al-Ahdal is a Yemeni novelist, short story writer and playwright. Laureate of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in 2008, is known for his contemporary literary style and sometimes socially critical works, some of which have been censored in Yemen. Until 2019, he has published five novels, four collections of short stories, a play and a film screenplay.
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards was a literary award for science fiction and fantasy works translated into English. The first award was presented in 2011 for works published in 2010. Two awards were given, one for long form and one for short form. Both the author and translator receive a trophy and a cash prize of US$350. The award was supported a number of ways including direct donations from the public, the Speculative Literature Foundation, prominent academics in particular staff at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), home of the Eaton Collection, one of the world’s largest collections of science fiction and fantasy literature. The last award was for 2013, and the award officially closed in October 2014.
Jonathan Wright is a British journalist and literary translator.
New Finnish Grammar is a 2000 novel by the Italian writer Diego Marani. It was translated from the Italian by Judith Landry and published by Dedalus Books in 2011. In Italy, the book won the Grinzane Cavour Prize in 2001. The English edition was shortlisted for the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
Peirene Press is an independent publishing house based in London. Established by novelist and publisher Meike Ziervogel, Peirene is primarily focused on bringing out high-quality English translations of contemporary European short novels. Peirene is also known for its regular literary salons, and for its pop-up bookstalls outside supermarkets and at farmers markets. Peirene Press donates 50p from the sale of each book to Counterpoint Arts, a charity that promotes the creative arts by and about refugees and migrants in the UK.
Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi novelist, poet, screenwriter and documentary film maker. He won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for Frankenstein in Baghdad. He lives and works in Baghdad.
Frankenstein in Baghdad is a 2013 Arabic novel written by the Iraqi writer Ahmed Saadawi. It won the IPAF award for 2014. The novel was translated into English by Jonathan Wright.
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.
Boyd Tonkin Hon. FRSL is an English writer, journalist and literary critic. He was the literary editor of The Independent newspaper from 1996 to 2013. A long-time proponent of foreign-language literature, he is the author of The 100 Best Novels in Translation (2018). He has been involved with leading literary prizes such as the Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. In 2020 Tonkin was the recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature.
Diaa Jubaili is an Iraqi novelist and writer from the city of Basra.
Eman Al Yousuf is an Emirati writer who was born in the United Arab Emirates in 1987. She has published three novels "the Window Which Saw", "Guard the Sun", "The Resurrection of Others" and three short stories including "A Bird in a Fish Tank" and "Many Faces of a Man. In 2015, her novel "Guard of the Sun" won the 2016 Emirates Novel Award and was translated into seven languages. She is the first Emirati woman to attend for the prestigious Program of International Writers at the University of Iowa. Eman is also a regular columnist in Emirati print media and the writer of the feminist short film "Ghafa".
Mazen Marrouf is a Palestinian writer who was born in 1978 in Beirut. He has more than five publications, and translated many novels from Icelandic into Arabic including the novels of several Icelandic writers. In 2019, his short story Jokes for the Gunmen was long-listed the Man Booker International Prize. Some of his poetry works and novels have been translated into many languages including English, French, Italian, and Spanish.
