Translation and Cultural Exchange - Sheikh Zayed Book Award

Summary:

2022 is a record-breaking year for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The annual prize received more than 3000 submissions from 55 countries this year, in a testament to its increasing importance and influence in the global networkof Arabic literature and culture.

Known as the Arab World’s Nobel Prize, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award showcases outstanding contributions to Arabic literature, the humanities, science, and culture. The Award's nine prize categories, ranging from Children's Literature to Literary and Art Criticism, and its Translation Grant, moreover, showcase the dynamic fields of translation from and into Arabic, and of European and North American Arabic studies.

In its ambition to connect with wider academic audiences, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award is organising a series of four events between April and June in collaboration with SOAS, University of London, famous for its commitment to and its reach in the global south. Professor Wen-chin Ouyang, with her connections in North America, Europe and East Asia, will host and moderate the events, bringing to this series an additional multilingual and cross-regional flare. The interlocutors and guests include shortlisted and invited authors, translators, cultural thought leaders and scholars from around the world. All events will be bilingual (Arabic/English) and online.

• Prof. Wen-chin Ouyang (moderator)
• Nawal Nasrallah - scholar, award-winning researcher and food writer, 2022 SZBA shortlistee for the category Translation
• Katharine Halls - literary translator, 2021 recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for the translation of Haytham El-Wardany's Things That Can’t Be Fixed
• Professor Wang Youyong - Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Shanghai International Studies University

With the support of : OWRI Creative Multilingualism Programme (Oxford), Shanghai International Studies University

Contact email: sp65@soas.ac.uk