Sheikh Zayed Book Award Engages in Cultural Dialogue in London
Date September, 20 2017
Location London, UK
The Sheikh Zayed Book Award held a seminar on “Exploring the Arab Culture in Other Languages” at the Lanesborough Hotel in London on Wednesday 20th September, which brought together an assembly of authors, publishers and translators.
The seminar commenced with a welcoming speech delivered by Mr. Abdullah Majed Al Ali, Acting Executive Director National Library Sector at the Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture & Tourism. Mr. Al Ali touched on the role of the Department in fostering cultural initiatives, which span across Sheikh Zayed Book Award; the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF); as well as Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, alongside numerous initiatives in arts, such as Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Museum Abu Dhabi and the Zayed National Museum. And he noted: “Through all of these leading initiatives, Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture & Tourism aims to extend outreach towards other cultures to encourage dialogue, and bring creativity into the spotlight. We aim to celebrate intellectual, literary and critical works that enriched Arab and international cultural, literary and social life, not to mention reviving the publishing industry and catalyse the translation movement.”
During the seminar, Ms. Margaret Obank, publisher at Banipal magazine commented: “The Sheikh Zayed Book Award and Banipal have much in common since a central feature of the SZBA is cultural dialogue – dialogue that will enrich experience and knowledge of the other.”
Ms. Dheyaa Al-Kaabi, a member of Sheikh Zayed Book Award Scientific Committee, elaborated on the role of Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s category for Arabic Culture in Other Languages in bringing depth to the cultural exchange between Arabic and other languages, via the winning titles in this category. “Yet the role of the Award in this dimension has not been limited to this category; the Cultural Personality of the Year Award has also named prominent figures in orientalism,” she added.
Representing the winners of the category, Prof. Marina Warner, inaugural winner of the SZBA Arab Culture in Other Languages Award, presented her experience with the book that earned her the prize. The book tells the story of the Arabian Nights in Western Civilisation from a thoroughly new and, until recently, little understood angle. Warner reverted to numerous references, not only within Arabic and Islamic literature, but across other cultures with similar narrations in mythography storytelling.
In previous years, the Arab Culture in Other Languages category of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award has celebrated the splendid achievements of exceptional writers, intellectuals, and cultural figure from around the world as winners, including Italian historian Mario Liverani, French/Egyptian researcher Rushdie Rashed, Prof. David Wirmer from Germany, and scholar Sugita Hideaki from Japan.
Speakers
Margaret Obank
Margaret Obank is a British publisher known for her contribution to the dissemination of contemporary Arabic literature in English translation. She is co-founder of Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature and Administrator of the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature. The Trust, which she set up in 2004, administers the annual Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation (the first prize in the world for published literary translation from Arabic to English) and the Banipal-Arab British Centre Library of Modern Arab Literature. Obank will speak about how the translation of literature – fiction and poetry – is an essential part of the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural world we live in; how the translation of literary works by contemporary authors from all corners of the Arab world into English (and other languages) makes this literature accessible to the widest possible audiences, allowing the works to take their rightful place within world literature and to speak to a global readership about the realities of Arab cultures in all their diversity and vibrancy.
Prof. Marina Warner
Marina Warner is an English Mythologist and Cultural Historian. She won the Sheikh Zayed "Arab Culture in Other Languages" Award for her book entitled "Stranger Magic" in 2013.
Dr. Haitham Al Zubaidi
Editor in Chief of Al Arab newspaper
Dr. Dhyaa Al Kaabi
Dr. Dhyaa Al Kaabi is a former member of Sheikh Zayed Book Award Scientific Committee.