Arabic Children’s Literature in Translation: Conversations with Publishers and Translators
Date September, 28 2020
Location Live Webinar on YouTube
Hosted by Publishing Perspectives and the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, award-winning translator Sawad Hussain and Canada-based Bookland Press publisher Robert Morgan joined Publishing Perspectives editor-in-chief Porter Anderson for a discussion on bringing Arabic literature to younger readers through translation. The speakers discussed how the Sheikh Zayed Book Award's translation grant and outreach supports and facilitates this process.
Speakers
Porter Anderson
Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London's Book Fair 2019 International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and indie authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson also has worked as a senior producer, editor, and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA, and as an arts critic (National Critics Institute) with The Village Voice and Dallas Times Herald.
Robert Morgan
The Publisher of BookLand Press, a Canadian book publishing company. He has accumulated over 20 years of experience in his field working as both a book publisher and publishing business consultant and has successfully accomplished various professional projects in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Mr. Morgan has also established a comprehensive translation programme at BookLand Press, which includes the translation of six Governor General Award-winning books and five Trillium Award-winning books. BookLand Press received the Sheikh Zayed Book Award Translation Grant for the translation of two winning titles:
1. (I Dream of Being a Concrete Mixer), winner of the Children's Literature Award in 2019, written by Hussain Al Mutawaa and translated into English by Sophia Vasalou and into French by Hana Jaber.
2. (Hatless), winner of the Children's Literature Award in 2017, written by Lateefa Buti and translated into French by Hana Jaber.
Sawad Hussain
The winner of the 2019 Arablit Short Story Prize and two English PEN Translates awards. She co-teaches a workshop on translating Arabic comics at UK secondary schools via the collective Shadow Heroes. Her recent translations include resistance novella Passage to the Plaza (shortlisted for the 2020 Palestine Book Awards) and the groundbreaking experimental short fiction collection A Bed for the King's Daughter. She holds an MA in modern Arabic literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies.