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Dr. Samah Selim Awarded Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize |
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SAMAH SELIM, Assistant Professor in the new Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures, has been awarded the 2009 Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her English translation of a collection by the Egyptian writer, Yahya al-Tahir Abdallah. The English title is The Collar and the Bracelet, published by the American University in Cairo Press.
The Ghobash-Banipal Prize deals specifically with the imaginative prose genre and the winner is selected by a panel of experts from around the world. On hearing the news, Samah Selim said: “The Collar and the Bracelet was just such a challenge for me – a labour of love in fact. It is a unique literary text with a language all its own, and I had always dreamed of translating it. I would like to thank Neil Hewison and the AUC Press for making this possible, and the judges of this year’s Banipal Prize for their recognition. My only regret is that the author, Yahya Taher Abdullah, is not alive today to personally share in this honour with me.”
Commenting on the translation, Francine Stock, one of the judges states: “This wonderful translation captures a particular style of narrative, written a third of a century ago but entirely modern.” Another judge, Marilyn Booth adds: “Samah Selim has been able to catch the Upper Egyptian and folkloric rhythms – and their utterly unromantic yoking to the everyday grimness and intimacy of modern realities – that Abdullah pioneered in his fiction.”
For the full story, see the announcement from Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature.
To learn more about The Collar and the Braclet, visit The American University in Cairo Press.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 26 October 2009 )
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