Sawad Hussain is a writer and translator of contemporary Arabic literature into English, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. She is known for her award-winning translations, as lecturer and speaker on the field of literary translation and for her contributions to contemporary Arabic literature in English-language publications.

Life and career

Hussain graduated with an MA in

Modern Arabic literature The instance that marked the shift in Arabic literature towards modern Arabic literature can be attributed to the contact between Arab world and the West during the 19th and early 20th century. This contact resulted in the gradual replacement of ...

from the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. Apart from her translations of Arabic novels and short stories into English, she is a regular contributor to literary journals such as

ArabLit ''ArabLit'' is an online magazine for information about translations of Arabic literature into English. The editors also publish ''ArabLit Quarterly'' as a print and electronic magazine, books with selected contemporary Arabic literary works and ...

and Asymptote magazine. Through her participation in international conferences and workshops, she is active in mentoring literary translators and in developing the field of literary translation in general. She has been a lecturer and guest speaker at numerous literary events, including the Shubbak Festival of Contemporary Arab Culture in London. Among other literary organizations, the

English PEN Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' associa ...

writers association, the Anglo-Omani Society, the Armory Square Prize for Literary Translation and the Palestine Book Awards have commended her work. Further, Hussain served as one of the

Chair A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...

officers of the Translator's Association in the United Kingdom. Hussain is a member of the

board of trustees A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

of the "Bait Al Ghasham - Dar Arab International Award" for translating Arabic literature into English, organized in cooperation by the

Oman Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...

i Bait Al Ghasham Foundation and London-based Dar Arab publishers. During a conference on the occasion of the 2024 award ceremony, she said that for most Western publishers, Arabic literature still evokes expectations of "desert scenes with palm trees" and similar stereotypes. Commenting on the scant number of translations of

African literature African literature is literature from Africa, either Oral literature, oral ("orature") or written in African languages, African and Afro-Asiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of Precolonialism, pre-colonial African literature can be ...

written in Arabic, for example from Sudan or by Eritrean-born writer

Haji Jaber Haji Jabir (born 1976) is an Eritrea, Eritrean novelist and journalist. He was born in the city of Massawa on the Red Sea coast. Writing in Arabic, he has published five novels until 2021. With the nomination of ''Black Foam'' (2018), Jabir became ...

, Hussain has also been spreading narratives by African writers for Western audiences. Another sub-genre Hussain has been translating are Arabic novels for young adults, including ''The Djinn's Apple'' by Algerian writer Djamila Morani and ''Ghady and Rawan'' by Lebanese authors

Fatima Sharafeddine Fatima Sharafeddine (; born 1966) is a Lebanese writer, editor, and translator of children's and young adults' books. She holds an M.A. in Educational Theory and Practice (1993) and an M.A. in Modern Arabic literature (1996), both from Ohio St ...

and Samar Mahfouz Barraj, co-translated with Marcia Lynx Qualey. In September 2020, the American magazine ''Publishing Perspectives'' and the prestigious

Sheikh Zayed Book Award The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is a literary award presented yearly to writers, intellectuals, publishers whose writings and scholarly publications contributed to Arab cultural, literary and social life. The award has been described as “the Arab ...

organized a

webinar Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conference, conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of ...

entitled "The Reality of Translating Children's Literature from Arabic to Other Languages". The webinar featured Hussain and Robert Morgan, publisher and director of Canadian publishing house Bookland Press, and was moderated by Porter Anderson, editor-in-chief of ''Publishing Perspectives''. A focus of this virtual conference was the significance of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award's annual prize for Arabic children's literature since 2017.

Critical reception

In 2023, Hussain's translation of Bushra al-Maqtari's non-fiction work ''What Have You Left Behind?'' was shortlisted for the

Warwick Prize for Women in Translation The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation is an annual award for work by a female author translated into English and published by a UK-based or Irish publisher during the previous calendar year. The prize was established in 2017 "to address the g ...

. Also in 2023, the English PEN Translates programme awarded a grant to Hussain for her forthcoming translation of Ishraga Mustafa'' s ''Woman of the Rivers'', the first memoir of a woman writer from Sudan in English translation.

Awards and distinctions

* Translator-in-Residence at the

Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies The Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) is the main research center for international studies and area studies at Princeton University and is one of the oldest centers of its kind in the United States. The Institut ...

* 2023 shortlisted by the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation * 2023 English PEN Translates grant * 2023 longlisted by the Christopher G. Moore Foundation prize for

Human Rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

writing * 2021

Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation The Banipal Prize, officially the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, is an annual award presented to a translator (or translators) for the published English translation of a full-length literary work in Arabic. The p ...

Selected works

Literary translations

* Fatima Sharafeddine and Samar Mahfouz Barraj. ''Ghadi and Rawan.'' University of Texas Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1477318522. * * Bushra al-Maqtari''. What Have You Left Behind?'' Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023, ISBN 978-1804270011. *

Shahla Ujayli Shahla Ujayli (born 1976) is a Syrian fiction writer and academic. A laureate of the Al Multaqa Prize for Arabic short stories, she became notable for her short story collection ''A Bed for the King’s Daughter'' and for her novels ''Summer with ...

. ''A Bed for the King’s Daughter.'' Center for Middle Eastern Studies/University of Texas Press, 2021, ISBN 9781477322284. *

Najwa Binshatwan Najwa Bin Shatwan () is a Libyan academic and novelist, the first Libyan to ever be shortlisted for the International Prize of Arabic Fiction (in 2017). She has authored four novels: Waber Al Ahssina (The Horses’ Hair); Madmum Burtuqali (Orange C ...

. ''Catalogue of a Private Life.''

Dedalus Books Dedalus Books is an independent publishing company based in Cambridgeshire, England. Publisher Eric Lane has said, "We like the bizarre, the grotesque, the surreal and the clever, preferably in the same book. We call this kind of book, distort ...

, ISBN 978 1 912868 72 8. * Stella Gaitano. ''Edo's Souls''. Dedalus Books, 2023, ISBN 978 1 915568 13 7. *

. ''Black'' Foam.

Amazon Publishing Amazon Publishing (or simply APub) is Amazon's book publishing unit launched in 2009. It is composed of 15 imprints including AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, 47North, and Topple Books. Amazon publishes e-books ...

, 2023, ISBN 9781542034036. * Djamila Morani. ''The Djinn's Apple.'' Neem Tree Press, 2024, ISBN 978-1911107859. * Ishraga Mustafa. ''Woman of the Rivers''. (forthcoming)

Articles

* * * (On resources for editing translations)

References

External links

Official webpage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hussain, Sawad Living people British women writers 21st-century British translators Arabic–English translators Alumni of SOAS University of London Writers of young adult literature Women writers of young adult literature Year of birth missing (living people)