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 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, 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, 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 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.
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.
Jabbour Douaihy was a critically-acclaimed Lebanese writer, translator, and professor of literature. His novels were nominated four times for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and he has also published translations, short story collections, and children's books. His work, mostly originally in Arabic, has been translated several languages, including English and French.
Paula Haydar is an American academic and translator. She has a PhD in Comparative literature and an MFA in Literary translation. She won an Arkansas Arabic Translation Prize for her translation of Elias Khoury's The Kingdom of Strangers. Her work has appeared in Banipal magazine and she has translated the literary work of Jabbour Douaihy, Rachid Al-Daif and others.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kareem James Abu-Zeid is an Egyptian-American translator, editor, and writer. He was born in Kuwait and grew up in the Middle East. He studied French and German language and literature at Princeton University, taking translation workshops under poets CK Williams and Paul Muldoon, and graduating summa cum laude in 2003. He then lived an itinerant life around Europe and the Middle East for several years, before moving to California for graduate studies. He obtained a master's degree and a PhD in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, with a dissertation focusing on modern poetry as spiritual practice. Following his PhD, he resumed a nomadic lifestyle for several more years, spending significant periods of time in southern India, before finally settling in New Mexico.
Alastair Neil Robertson Niven Hon FRSL is an English literary scholar and author. He has written books on D. H. Lawrence, Raja Rao, and Mulk Raj Anand, and has been Director General of The Africa Centre, Director of Literature at the Arts Council of Great Britain and of the British Council, a principal of Cumberland Lodge, and president of English PEN. In 2021, Niven was chosen as the recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, awarded for exceptional contribution to literature.
Sarah Enany is a literary translator.
Shada Mustafa is a Palestinian novelist, best known for her novel ما تركت خلفي which was shortlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature 2021, Young Author category.
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.
