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.
Leila Fuad Aboulela is a fiction writer, essayist, and playwright of Sudanese origin based in Aberdeen, Scotland. She grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and moved to Scotland in 1990 where she began her literary career. Aboulela has published five novels and several short stories, which have been translated into fifteen languages. Her most popular novels, Minaret (2005) and The Translator (1999) both feature the stories of Muslim women in the UK and were long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award and Orange Prize. Aboulela’s works have been included in publications such as Harper's Magazine, Granta, The Washington Post and The Guardian. BBC Radio has adapted her work extensively and broadcast a number of her plays, including The Insider, The Mystic Life and the historical drama The Lion of Chechnya. The five-part radio serialization of her 1999 novel The Translator was short-listed for the Race In the Media Award (RIMA). Aboulela’s work is critically acclaimed for its depiction of Muslim migrants in the West the and the challenges they face. Her work is heavily influenced by her own experiences as an immigrant to the United Kingdom and the hardships she experienced during the transition. Her work centers around political issues and themes such as identity, multi-cultural relationships, the East-West divide, migration, and Islamic spirituality. Her prose has been celebrated for its "restrained lyricism, irony and clarity” by J.M Coetzee, Ben Okri and Ali Smit.
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." He is an associate professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.
Ali Bader is an Iraqi novelist, poet, poetry translator, critic, regarded as the most significant writer to emerge in Arabic world, in the last decade. author of fifteen 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. In addition to his work as an author, he is also journalist. He is working as Editor-in-Chief of Eurolitkrant an interdisciplinary and literary journal. https://eurolitkrant.com/IndexEn.aspx.
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.
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.
Jonathan Wright is a British journalist and literary translator.
The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection is awarded by the PEN America "to exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work — a first novel or collection of short stories ... represent distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise." The winner is selected by a panel of PEN Members made up of three writers or editors. The PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize was originally named the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. The prize awards the debut writer a cash award of US$25,000.
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..
Itikal Al-Tai is an Iraqi artist, a former television presenter, film critic and novelist born in 1949, Hilla, Iraq.
Frankenstein in Baghdad is an 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.
Andrej Longo is an Italian writer, playwright and pizza-maker. He is a winner of the Bagutta Prize for literature.
Maya Jaggi is a British writer, literary critic, editor and cultural journalist. In the words of the Open University, from which Jaggi received an honorary doctorate in 2012, she "has had a transformative influence in the last 25 years in extending the map of international writing today". Jaggi has been a contributor to a wide range of publications including The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, The Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New Statesman, Wasafiri, Index on Censorship, and Newsweek, and is particularly known for her profiles of writers, artists, film-makers, musicians and others. She is also a broadcaster and presenter on radio and television. Jaggi is the niece of actor and food writer Madhur Jaffrey.
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. Also, he has been writing for a number of left-wing newspapers in Sudan and served as the culture editor of the Sudanese Al-Akhbar newspaper.
Najwa Bin Shatwan (Arabic: نجوى بن شتوان; 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. 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.
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 on 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–Icelandic writer, translator, journalist and poet, born in 1978. 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 "Militant Jokes" 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.
