Luke Leafgren Wins Banipal Prize for Translation of Najwa Barakat’s ‘Mr. N’
JANUARY 8, 2024 — Organizers announced today that the 2023 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation has been awarded to Luke Leafgren for his translation of Najwa Barakat’s Mister N, which was also shortlisted for the EBRD Prize last year. The awards ceremony is set to take place in London on February 7 of this year.
The judges — Ros Schwartz, Tony Calderbank, Sarah Enany, and Barbara Schwepcke — said in their report:
It was quite a challenge to select a winner from such a range of genres – including fiction, testimony, a children’s book and historical fiction – but the judging process was as delightfully simple as it was unanimous. In our individual selections, almost all the judges had Mister N as a contender and it was highly spoken of by all.
We soon reached a consensus as to the shortlist, and one of us said, “Right, so we all seem to pretty much agree that Mister N is our winner?” There was enthusiastic assent from everyone. This unanimity is even more striking given the sterling quality of the works on our shortlist. All of them are beautifully written originals, with compelling narratives – saddening and sobering in the case of What Have You Left Behind?; uplifting and exciting in Thunderbird; contemplative and profound in The Turban and the Hat; captivating and atmospheric in The King of India; and complex and enthralling in Firefly. The translations of these works more than do them justice; they give the originals new life in a new language.
And yet, this said, Mister N was the standout choice for its magnificent translation. In smooth, self-effacing prose, enriched by a widely varied vocabulary, Luke Leafgren leads the reader seamlessly into Najwa Barakat’s creation of a labyrinthine world where all is not as it seems. The shifts in time and point of view are conveyed with aplomb, and the general effect is of a riveting psychological thriller written in delightfully rich and eloquent English.
Capturing the spirit and the letter of the original in all its depth and virtuosity, Mister N is an exceptionally good example of the translator’s art. It is both faithful and creative, fully representing the original work with all its dark complexity, fragmented narration and splashes of sombre humour. The choices of structure, vocabulary, and idiom that Luke Leafgren has made, perfectly render the Arabic, recreating the obsessive fastidiousness of the protagonist, the ambiguous nature of his accommodation and the serial instability of the city around him.
On Thursday February, 8 at 6 p.m. GMT, Luke Leafgren will be in conversation with chair of judges Ros Schwartz, and poet-translator Khaled Mattawa both in person and online. Those interested can register online.