Banipal Trust for Arabic Literature

The Saif Ghobash - Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation

The 2010 Award


The Winner Humphrey Davies




The 2010 Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, the fifth year of the prize, is awarded to Humphrey Davies for his translation of the novel Yalo by Elias Khoury, published by Maclehose Press in the UK.

Humphrey Davies is also a runner-up this year for his translation of Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher, published by Sceptre, UK and recently nominated for the 2011 IMPAC Prize. The Arabic original of Sunset Oasis won the inaugural 2008 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Both Yalo and Sunset Oasis were long-listed last year for the 2010 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

A further runner-up is Kareem James Abu-Zeid for his translation of Cities without Palms by Tarek Etayeb, published by Arabia Books, UK.

The 2010 judges were author Margaret Drabble DBE, writer, translator and Professor of Comparative Literature at Warwick University Susan Bassnett, translator of contemporary Arabic literature of Georgetown University Elliott Colla, and on behalf of the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature Yasir Suleiman, Professor of Modern Arabic Studies and Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.