If you're a subscriber to the Banipal magazine (which I happen to be) then you will have received an email announcing the winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. A prize awarded to translators in recognition of their contribution to the literary world.
The winner of the 2012 award (the ceremony takes place on Feb 4) is Roger Allen for his translation of 'A Muslim Suicide' by Moroccan Bensalem Himmich published by Syracuse University Press.
Runner-up is Humphrey Davies for his translation of 'I Was Born There, I Was Born Here' by Mourid Barghouty, published by Bloomsbury.
As stated in the Banipal email, the Saif Ghobash
Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation is an annual prize of
£3,000, awarded to the translator(s) of a published translation in English of a
full-length imaginative and creative Arabic work of literary merit published in
the thirty-five years prior to submission of the translation and first
published in English translation in the year prior to the award. Entries are
judged by a panel of four distinguished authors, critics and literary experts, two
of whom read and consider both the Arabic original and the English translation.
The prize is administered by the Society of Authors in the UK, as are other
prizes for literary translation into English from European languages. The Award
Ceremony is hosted by the British Centre for Literary Translation, the Arts
Council, and the Society of Authors. The Saif Ghobash-Banipal entries can have
been published anywhere in the world but must be available for purchase in the
United Kingdom, either via a distributor or on-line.
The prize, the first worldwide for a published work of English literary
translation from Arabic, was established in 2005 by Banipal, the magazine of
modern Arab literature in English translation, and the Banipal Trust for Arab
Literature. It is wholly sponsored by Omar Saif Ghobash and his family in
memory of his father, the late Saif Ghobash, a man passionate about Arabic
literature and other literatures of the world.
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