Ahmed Naji’s ‘Rotten Evidence’ a Finalist for 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award

JANUARY 25, 2024 — Today, the National Book Critics Circle announced its finalists for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Awards, which are granted in eight categories: autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, translation, and a John Leonard Prize.

No Arabic works were finalists in the “translation” category, but translated works also appeard in both the fiction and autobiography categories, as well as for the John Leonard Prize. In fiction, Marie NDiaye’s Vengeance Is Mine, translated from French by Jordan Stump, was a finalist. For the John Leonard Prize, Tahir Hamut Izgil’s Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: a Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide, translated by Joshua L. Freeman, was a finalist.

In autobiography, Ahmed Naji’s Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison, translated from Arabic by Katharine Halls, made the five-book list of finalists.

Autobiography award chair May-lee Chai said, in the NBCC’s prepared statement, “It was a particularly rich year for autobiography. Each book on the shortlist changed the way we viewed the world in some fundamental way.”

Six books were listed as finalists in the “Greg Barrios Book in Translation” category, including Kareem Abdulrahman’s translation of The Last Pomegranate Tree by Bachtyar Ali, translated from Kurdish. The other five translated books were: Natascha Bruce’s translation of Owlish by Dorothy Tse; Don Mee Choi’s translation of Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon; Todd Fredson’s translation of Zakwato & Loglêdou’s Peril by Azo Vauguy; Maureen Freely’s translation of Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü; and Tiffany Tsao’s translation of Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu.

The 2023 awards are set to be presented on March 21, 2024 at the New School in New York City.

Also read:

‘Rotten Evidence’: A Conversation with Translator Katharine Halls