Winners of Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation Include Michael Cooperson, Salvador Peña Martín, Banipal

Yesterday, Qatar announced the winners of their second annual Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding:

Last year, the prize’s debut, awards were given for Arabic to and from English, Arabic to and from Turkish, and an “Achievement Award.” This year, the prizes were between Arabic and English, Arabic and Spanish, and there were three Achievement Awards.

According to the Sheikh Hamad Award website, $200,000 is awarded in each category. In each, there is a first prize ($100,000), a second ($60,000), and a third ($40,000). That makes a million dollars total.

The top winner from Arabic into English this year was Michael Cooperson, for his translation of the Virtues of the Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal by Ibn al-Jawzī. This marks the second year that the top prize has gone to a Library of Arabic Literature project. Last year, first prize in the Arabic to English category went to Library of Arabic Literature translators Geert Jan van Gelder and Gregor Schoelerfor their work on the Epistle of Forgiveness by al-Ma`arrī.

The top winner from English into Arabic, meanwhile, went to an academic work. It was awarded to Murad Tadghout for his translation of Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers by Adam Gacek.

The top prize for Spanish into Arabic did go to a modern literary work: a translation of Marcella Serrano’s Diez Mujeres by Saleh Saleh Almani. And the top prize for Arabic into Spanish went to Salvador Peña Martín for his translation of A Thousand and One Nights as Mil y una noches.

The three achievement awards went to Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, Banipal Publishing in London, and the Madrid-based Casa Árabe.

The rest of the awards were tweeted out @HamadTAward and will likely be on the prize website soon. There was no shortlist or indication of who the judges of the prize had been.

More:

Cooperson goes Inside the Sausage Factory: Translating ‘The Virtues of the Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal’

Cooperson discusses his translation: ‘As Detailed a Picture of Ibn Hanbal’s World as We’re Likely to Get’