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Details about the Second Annual Young Translators’ Prize (brought to you by Harvill Secker and Foyles) are now available online:
The Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize was launched in 2010 as part of Harvill Secker’s centenary celebrations. It is an annual prize, which focuses on a different language each year, with the aim of recognising the achievements of young translators at the start of their careers. For the 2011 prize Harvill Secker has teamed up with Foyles, and the prize is kindly supported by Banipal. This year’s chosen language is Arabic, and the prize will centre on the short story ‘Layl Qouti’ by Mansoura Ez Eldin.
Egyptian novelist and journalist Mansoura Ez Eldin was born in Delta Egypt in 1976. She studied journalism at the Faculty of Media, Cairo University and has since published short stories in various newspapers and magazines: she published her first collection of short stories, Shaken Light, in 2001. This was followed by two novels, Maryam’s Maze in 2004 and Beyond Paradise in 2009. Her work has been translated into a number of languages, including an English translation of Maryam’s Maze by the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press. In 2010, she was selected for the Beirut39, as one of the 39 best Arab authors below the age of 40. Her second novel Wara’a al-Fardoos (Beyond Paradise) was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic Booker) 2010. She was also a participant of the inaugural nadwa (writers’ workshop) held by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in Abu Dhabi in 2009 and was a mentor at the second nadwa in October 2010.
The winning translator will receive £1,000, a selection of Harvill Secker titles and Foyles tokens.
To enter, you have to be between the ages of 18 and 34 on July 29, 2011. (God damn it, I hate not being eligible for “young” prizes.)
Anyway, you can download the entry form here, and the Arabic text here.
Good luck!
I just found this roundup from a delegation of American Booksellers who attended the London Book Fair.
Not that extensive of a post, but there are a few interesting observations. First about the fair itself:
The London Book Fair is an interesting counterpart to America’s Book Expo America. In the most critical view, booksellers are little more than an afterthought at LBF. A historical legacy of the LBF’s origins and current industry dynamics, publisher deal-making is the focus as the majority of attendees are present to negotiate publishing & distribution rights.
And then about Foyles, one of the greatest bookstores in the world.
Foyles is in the heart of central London not far from Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square on Charring Cross Road. I’m so envious of their art-gallery-cum-author-event-space and deep selection of art & photography books. We attended an Arab Authors night co-hosted with “Words Without Borders” which was standing room only. Along the wall behind the authors was an art exhibition of photographs from the book “London Street Art” by Prestel press. You can see the signs that the store has had to respond to competition from the chain stores (including one right across the street), and as a result offers selective discounts at the main entrance but Foyles has also really tried to cultivate departments which cater to niche interest groups including oddly enough a specialty department for Doctors & Veterinarians where you can buy lab coats, scrubs, stethoscopes, doctors bags, along with medical school exam guides, related books and even a full skeleton if you require.
Reviewed by Rachael Daum
The Urdu word basti refers to any space, intimate to worldly, and is often translated as “common place” or “a gathering place.” This book by Intizar Husain, who is widely regarded as one of the most important living Pakistani writers,. . .
Reviewed by Vincent Francone
The Whispering Muse, one of three books by Icelandic writer Sjón just published in North America, is nothing if not inventive. Stories within stories, shifting narration, leaps in time, and characters who transform from men to birds and back again—you’ve. . .
Reviewed by Camila Santos
Luis Negrón’s debut collection Mundo Cruel is a journey through Puerto Rico’s gay world. Published in 2010, the book is already in its fifth Spanish edition. Here in the U.S., the collection has been published by Seven Stories Press and. . .
Reviewed by Grant Barber
“South”
To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars
from the bank of shadow to have watched
the scattered lights
my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations
to have heard the ring of. . .
Reviewed by Larissa Kyzer
When Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason first published LoveStar, his darkly comic parable of corporate power and media influence run amok, the world was in a very different place. (This was back before both Facebook and Twitter, if you can. . .
Reviewed by Tiffany Nichols
When starting Hi, This Is Conchita and Other Stories, Santiago Roncagliolo’s second work to be translated into English, I was expecting Roncagliolo to explore the line between evil and religion that was front and center in Red April. Admittedly, I. . .
Reviewed by Josh Billings
Christa Wolf’s newly-translated City of Angels is a novel of atonement, and in this way the work of art that it resembles most to me is not another book, but the 2003 Sophia Coppola film Lost in Translation. Like that. . .
