Banipal Prize Announces 2020’s Judges, Eligible Titles

Banipal has announced the judges and eligible entries for the 15th year of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation:

This year’s judging chair will be Paul Starkey, who was a judge on the inaugural committee for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a prolific translator, and a previous winner of the Banipal translation prize. The other three judges are: Guardian columnist Justine Jordan, writer and activist Nii Ayikwei Parkes, and film director and philanthropist Omar Al-Qattan.

This year there are fourteen entries, down slightly from last year’s sixteen, the previous year’s 20, and 2017’s seventeen. This year’s entries must have been published between April 2019 and March 2020.

The winning translator receives a prize of £3,000.

This year’s entries are:

• Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat, translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Sue Copeland (Neem Tree Press)
• The Quarter by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Roger Allen (Saqi Books)
• The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon (Syracuse University Press)
• Guard of the Dead by George Yarak, translated by Raphael Cohen (Hoopoe, imprint of AUC Press)

• A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me by Youssef Fadel, translated by Alexander E. Elinson (Hoopoe, imprint of AUC Press)
• The Sky That Denied Me by Jawdat Fakhreddine, translated by Huda Fakhreddine and Roger Allen (University of Texas Press)
• Clouds over Alexandria by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, translated by Kay Heikkinen (Hoopoe, imprint of AUC Press)
• Velvet by Huzama Habayeb, translated by Kay Heikkinen (Hoopoe, imprint of AUC Press)

• Mama Hissa’s Mice by Saud Alsanousi, translated by Sawad Hussain (Amazon Crossing)
• Passage to the Plaza by Sahar Khalifeh, translated by Sawad Husain (Seagull Books)
• Ice by Sonallah Ibrahim, translated by Margaret Litvin (Seagull Books)
• The Old Woman and the River by Ismail Fahd Ismail, translated by Sophia Vasalou (Interlink Books)

• The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon, translated by Jonathan Wright (Yale University Press)
• The Egyptian Assassin by Ezzedine C. Fishere, translated by Jonathan Wright (Hoopoe, imprint of AUC Press)

The prize :aims to raise the profile of contemporary Arabic literature as well as honouring the important work of individual translators in bringing the work of established and emerging Arab writers to the attention of the wider world.” You can follow news of the prize at their website.