Peter Theroux

Last updated

Peter Christopher Sebastian Theroux [1] (born 1956) is an American translator and writer. The younger brother of writers Alexander Theroux and Paul Theroux, during college Peter studied for a year at the University of Cairo. He became interested in Arabic literature and has made it his life's work. He has translated numerous works of both historic and chiefly contemporary fiction by Egyptian, Iraqi and Lebanese authors. In addition, he has written articles and published a travel book, Sandstorms (1990), about his extensive travels in the Middle East.

Contents

Early life and education

Theroux was born in 1956 in Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest son of Catholic parents; his mother, Anne (née Dittami), was Italian American, and his father, Albert Eugene Theroux, was French Canadian. [2] [3] His mother was a grammar school teacher and his father was a salesman for the American Oak Leather company. [4] [5] His two older brothers, Alexander (b. 1938) and Paul (b. 1941), both became writers. Peter also became interested in literature, travel, and writing.

In a 1978 profile of the Theroux family, James Atlas wrote that then 21-year-old Peter “had completed five (unpublished) novels by the time he started college. Bound in dignified black covers with their titles embossed on the spines, these manuscripts—some of them written when he was only 14—have been acclaimed by his brothers as the work of ‘a mature satirist.’” [6]

He studied English literature at Harvard University, and studied for a year at the American University in Cairo.

Career

Theroux worked as a journalist in Saudi Arabia, and for a time was a stringer for The Wall Street Journal . [7]

Theroux's first published translated literary work was the first volume of Cities of Salt , the contemporary epic novel cycle by the Saudi writer Abdelrahman Munif. He translated two further novels in that cycle. His translated works include contemporary fiction by Arabic writers from Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. These works include the following:

His translations are highly regarded. Fellow translator Raymond Stock said of his work, "[T]here's none better. His translations are clear and poetic and read like they’re written in English." [7]

Theroux has also written his own books, including Sandstorms (1990), which recounted his travels in the Middle East. Writing in the Los Angeles Times , Alex Raksin described Sandstorms as a "stunningly candid portrait of culture and politics in the Middle East". [8]

Theroux wrote Translating LA, about living in Los Angeles. He has contributed pieces to National Geographic magazine. According to an editor at Tablet , Theroux worked for over two decades as a senior CIA analyst. [9] [10]

Personal life

Theroux lives in Los Angeles, California.

Honors and awards

Theroux's translation of Idris Ali's Dongola: A Novel of Nubia won the University of Arkansas Press Award for Arabic Literature in Translation in 1997.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

Abdul Rahman bin Ibrahim al-Munif, also known as Abdelrahman Munif, was a Saudi Arabian novelist, short story writer, memoirist, journalist, thinker, and cultural critic. He is considered one of the most significant modern Saudi authors and one of the best in the Arabic language of the 20th century. His novels include strong political elements as well as mockeries of the Middle Eastern elite classes. He is best-known for Cities of Salt, a quintet of novels about how the discovery of oil transformed a traditional Bedouin culture. Munif's work offended the rulers of Saudi Arabia, which led to the banning of many of his books and the revocation of his Saudi Arabian citizenship.

Arabic literature is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is Adab, which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and which implies politeness, culture and enrichment.

<i>Children of Gebelawi</i> 1959 novel by Naguib Mahfouz

Children of Gebelawi is a novel by the Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. It is also known by its Egyptian dialectal transliteration, Awlad Haretna, and by the alternative translated transliteral Arabic title of Children of Our Alley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elias Khoury</span> Lebanese intellectual, playwright and novelist

Elias Khoury is a Lebanese novelist and public intellectual. His novels and literary criticism have been translated into several languages. In 2000, he won the Prize of Palestine for his book Gate of the Sun, and he won the Al Owais Award for fiction writing in 2007. Khoury has also written three plays and two screenplays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ameen Rihani</span> American writer

Ameen Rihani (Amīn Fāris Anṭūn ar-Rīḥānī), was a Lebanese American writer, intellectual and political activist. He was also a major figure in the mahjar literary movement developed by Arab emigrants in North America, and an early theorist of Arab nationalism. He became an American citizen in 1901.

Ghassan Hamdan is an Iraqi scholar, poet and translator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohammad Moustafa Haddara</span> Arabic scholar (1930–1997)

Mohammad Moustafa Haddara was an Arabic scholar. Haddara was a distinguished Professor of Arabic Literature, at Alexandria University, Egypt, and a professor at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bahaa Taher</span> Egyptian novelist (1935–2022)

Bahaa Taher, sometimes transliterated as Bahaa Tahir, Baha Taher, or Baha Tahir, was an Egyptian novelist and short story writer who wrote in Arabic. He was awarded the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American University in Cairo Press</span> Academic publisher

The American University in Cairo Press is the leading English-language publisher in the Middle East.

Abdo Khal is an Arab writer and winner of the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Idris Ali was an Egyptian author of Nubian origin.

Hartmut Fähndrich is a German scholar and translator, specialising in translation of Arabic literature into German. He was born in Tübingen and studied at the universities of Tübingen, Münster, and UCLA. He obtained an MA in comparative literature and a PhD in Islamic studies from UCLA. In 1972, he moved to Switzerland where he has lived ever since. He has taught at the University of Bern and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hassan Daoud</span> Lebanese writer and journalist

Hassan Daoud is a Lebanese writer and journalist. Originally from the village of Noumairieh in southern Lebanon, he moved to Beirut as a child with his family. He studied Arabic literature at university. During the Lebanese civil war that broke out in 1975, he worked as a journalist, a profession he has pursued ever since. He served as a correspondent for al-Hayat for 11 years. At present he edits Nawafez, the cultural supplement of the Beiruti newspaper al-Mustaqbal.

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction Nadwa is an annual writers' workshop for young writers from the Arab world. Held under the aegis of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the nadwa is the first such workshop for Arab writers and has been an annual event since 2009.

Anthony Calderbank is an English translator of contemporary Arabic literature. 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. Most recently, Calderbank became Country Director of the British Council in the new state of South Sudan.

Cities of Salt is a petrofiction novel by Abdul Rahman Munif. It was first published in Lebanon in 1984 and was immediately recognized as a major work of Arab literature. It was translated into English by Peter Theroux. The novel, and the quintet of which it is the first volume, describes the far-reaching effects of the discovery of huge reserves of oil under a once-idyllic oasis somewhere on the Arabian peninsula.

Ghalib Halasa was a Jordanian novelist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and political activist. He was a prominent literary figure in the Arabic-speaking world during the 20th century. Some of Halasa's most influential novels include al-Dhahik (Laughter), al-Su’al, and Sultana.

The instance that marked the shift in the whole of Arabic literature towards modern Arabic literature can be attributed to the Arab World-West contact during the 19th and early 20th century. This contact resulted in the gradual replacement of Classical Arabic forms with Western ones. Genres like plays, novels, and short stories were coming to the fore. Although the exact date in which this reformation in literary production occurred is unknown, the rise of modern Arabic literature was "inseparable" from the Nahda, also referred to as the Arab Renaissance.

Roger Allen is an English scholar of Arabic literature. He was the first student at Oxford University to obtain a PhD degree in modern Arabic literature, which he did under the supervision of Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. His doctoral thesis was on Muhammad al-Muwaylihi’s narrative Hadith Isa ibn Hisham, and was later published as a book titled A Period of Time. At the request of Dr Gaber Asfour, the Director-General of the Supreme Council for Culture in Egypt, he later prepared an edition of the complete works of Muhammad al-Muwaylihi (2002), and that of his father, Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi (2007).

Abdullah bin Idris (1929-2021) was a Saudi Arabian author and poet; he was born in Harmah, and he died aged 92 years old in October 2021.

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-04-18. Retrieved 2017-09-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ↑ The International Who's Who 2004 . Routledge. 2003. pp.  1668. ISBN   1-85743-217-7.
  3. ↑ Cheuse, Alan (4 June 1989). "A worldly education Paul Theroux imagines a much-traveled writer's active erotic life". Chicago Tribune.
  4. ↑ "Current Biography Yearbook". 1979.
  5. ↑ Meanor, Patrick; Crane, Gwen (2000). American Short-story Writers Since World War II.: Second series. ISBN   9780787631277.
  6. ↑ “The Theroux Family Arsenal,” New York Times Magazine, 30 April 1978, 24.
  7. 1 2 "Profile: Peter Theroux: Found in Translation", Washington City Paper,
  8. ↑ Raksin, Alex (July 22, 1990). "Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia by Peter Theroux". Los Angeles Times.
  9. ↑ MazMHussain [@MazMHussain] (March 21, 2023). "Since people are asking. This was in response to pointing out that the author had cited a fictional Iranian activist as a source in their article. theintercept.com/2019/06/09/heshmat-alavi-fake-iran-mek/" (Tweet). Retrieved March 21, 2023– via Twitter.
  10. ↑ Kenner, David (September 21, 2020). "Saudi Arabia's imagined worlds by David Kenner". Institute of Current World Affairs.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.