‘On the Greenwich Line’ Wins James Tait Black Prize
Katharine Halls’ translation of Shady Lewis’s On the Greenwich Line won this year’s James Tait Black Prize in the fiction category.
Katharine Halls
‘The Noose Boy’: Short Fiction by Rawaa Sonbol
Four of Rawaa Sonbol’s short stories were included in the recent wide-ranging collection of contemporary Syrian literature, Aftershocks, edited by Alia Malek and published by McSweeney’s last December. All four […]
Judges Call Katharine Halls’ Banipal-winning Translation ‘Brilliant Feat’ & ‘Masterclass’
JANUARY 8, 2025 — Organizers today announced that the 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation has been awarded to Katharine Halls for her “masterclass” of a translation […]
Banipal Translation Prize Announces 2024’s 6-book Shortlist
DECEMBER 2, 2024 — Organizers today announced the six-book shortlist of the 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. The shortlisted works reflect both the widening scope of […]
Forthcoming December 2024: Satire, Poetry, & Women on Prison
If you know of other Arabic books forthcoming in translation in December 2024 that should be added to this list, please let us know either in the comments or at […]
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, […]
‘Rotten Evidence’: A Conversation with Translator Katharine Halls
By Tugrul Mende This month, Ahmed Naji’s Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison was published in Katharine Halls’ English translation. The book chronicles Naji’s two years in prison, which […]
’10/11 Heralds the Turning of a Page’: Sandra Hetzl & Katharine Halls on Their New Literary Agency
By M Lynx Qualey Headed up by Sandra Hetzl, Katharine Halls, and Alice Guthrie, 10/11 is “a literary agency operating in Europe that specializes in bold, exciting, contemporary Arabic literature.” […]
Lit & Found: Interview with a Reluctant (Award-winning) Translator
“I don’t see myself as an intermediary at all. I see myself as a reader. I am an expert reader because I can speak the language and I know its history, and because I understand some things about the context of the text that I read.”