Prize

Marilyn is Professor Emerita at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Magdalen College, Oxford University. Her research focuses on Arabophone women’s writing and gender ideology debates in the nineteenth century, most recently illustrated by her work “The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz: Feminist Thinking in Fin-de-siècle Egypt” (Oxford University Press, 2021). She has translated numerous works of Arabic fiction into English. Notably, her translation of “Celestial Bodies” by Omani author Jokha Alharthi won the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. She has also translated “Bitter Orange Tree” and “Silken Gazelles” by Alharthi. Other authors she has translated include Hoda Barakat, Hassan Daoud, Elias Khoury, Latifa al-Zayyat, and Nawal al-Saadawi. Upcoming translations include Omani author Zahran Alqasmi’s “Honey Hunger” (Hoopoe) and Syrian Kurdish author Jan Dost’s “Safe Corridor” (DarArab), as well as her first venture into translating nineteenth-century fiction with Alis al-Bustani’s “Sa’iba” (Oxford World’s Classics). She and Jan Dost were the recipients of the first Bait AlGhasham/ DarArab Translation Award (2024).

Marcia is an editor, writer, occasional translator, and speaker focusing on Arabic literature and translation. She founded ArabLit, which won a “Literary Translation Initiative” award at the 2017 London Book Fair and the 2024 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature, and has helped it grow into a small publishing cooperative. She reviews for various magazines and newspapers and has translated several novels, including the Palestine Book Award-winning “Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands” by Sonia Nimr and Haya Saleh’s “Wild Poppies,” shortlisted for this year’s GLLI Award. She was shortlisted for the Banipal Prize for the first two novels in Sonia Nimr’s “Thunderbird” series. She is also a co-founder of the “WorldKidLit” initiative and co-hosts the BULAQ podcast, which explores the literature of the Maghreb and Mashreq. Her most recent collaboration is with Majalla 28, Special Spring Issue 2024: “Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!”

Mbarek is a poet, translator, and scholar. His work has been widely published in many journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Al-Arabiyya, Banipal, CELAAN Review, Metamorphoses, Middle Eastern Literatures, The Journal of North African Studies, Translation Review, World Literature Today, and ArabLit. Sryfi has co-authored “Perspectives: Arabic Language and Culture in Film” (Alucen Learning, 2009) and has translated and co-translated numerous works, including “The Monarch of the Square” (Syracuse University Press, 2014), “The Arabs and the Art of Storytelling” (Syracuse University Press, 2014), “The Elusive Fox” (Syracuse University Press, 2016), “The Blueness of the Evening” (Arkansas University Press, 2018), “The Handsome Jew” (DarArab, 2022), and “Alone by the Nile” (Diálogos, 2023). His forthcoming translations include Ahmed Vall Ould Dine’s “The Rock of the Land,” Younis Al Akhzami’s “Ras Madrakah,” and the poetry collection by Yaseen Al-Saeedi, the recipient of the first Bait AlGhasham/ DarArab Translation Award (2023) (DarArab). Sryfi published a chapbook, “The Trace of a Smile” (Moonstone Press, 2018), which shared first place, and two poetry collections, “City Poems – A Selection of Poems” (Éditions L’Harmattan, 2020) and “Chasing a Moving Landscape” (Diálogos, 2022), in addition to a selection in Arabic in two editions (The House of Poetry in Morocco, 2022 & Dar El Adham For Publishing & Distribution, 2023) and a forthcoming second collection in Arabic (Egypt, 2024).

• Tasks of the Judges

The judges will select the top five works and choose a final winner based on the prize’s evaluation criteria. They will then submit their evaluation report explaining their process and considerations in shortlisting the five works and identifying the prize winners.