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Paula Haydar
Paula Haydar is Professor of Arabic at the University of Arkansas. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and an MFA degree in Literary Translation.
Her translation of Lebanese novelist Jabbour Douaihy's June Rain (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing), which in its original Arabic was shortlisted for the 2008 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, is the highly commended runner-up of the 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation and also made the Beirut Daily Star's year end book review list of the six Top Middle East Novels of 2014.
She has translated six other novels by contemporary Lebanese novelists: three by Elias Khoury - Gates of the City and The Journey of Little Gandhi (University of Minnesota Press), and The Kingdom of Strangers (University of Arkansas Press), the latter winning the 1996 Arkansas Arabic Manuscript Translation Award, and three by Rashid al-Daif – This Side of Innocence and Learning English (with co-translator Adnan Haydar) (Interlink, 2001 and 2007 respectively), and the third in 2014 with co-translator of Nadine Sinno, Who's Afraid of Meryl Streep? (University of Texas Press).
Her translations of novels by Palestinian writers include Sahar Khalifeh's The End of Spring (Interlink, 2008) and Adania Shibli's Touch (Clockroot, 2014). The latter was awarded the Young Writer's Award – Palestine by the A.M. Qattan Foundation in its original version, and in translation made the longlist of the 2011 Best Translated Book Awards at the University of Rochester's Three Percent.
In addition, Haydar has translated a number of short stories and poems that have appeared in international and national journals. She also holds a B.S. in Physics with a minor in Arabic and an M.Ed. in Secondary Level Physics Education and teacher certification in Physics and Maths, and has taught Arabic, Physics and Maths in the USA and the Middle East.
Contributor's Issues
Banipal 67 - Elias Khoury, The Novelist (Spring 2020)
The Tent Generations
Things I Left Behind by Shada Mustafa, translated by Nancy Roberts
Shadow of the Sun by Taleb Alrefai
Birds of Nabaa, A Mauritanian Tale by Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah
The Stone Serpent, Barates of Palmyra’s Elegy for Regina his Beloved by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Mansi A Rare Man in His Own Way by Tayeb Saleh (Banipal Books, 2020)
Tayeb Salih
Goat Mountain by Habib Selmi
Habib Selmi, author of Goat Mountain and 3 times shortlisted for the IPAF
The Mariner by Taleb Alrefai (Banipal Books, 2020)
Taleb Alrefai, author of Shadow of the Sun and The Mariner
Digital images
Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures by Fadhil al-Azzawi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Fadhil al-Azzawi
Poems of Alexandria and New York by Ahmed Morsi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Digital Banipal promotion B67
Saïd Khatibi
Amjad Nasser (1955–2019)
Digital Banipal the full archive
Denys Johnson-Davies (1922–2017) 70 years translating Arabic literature
Ahmed Morsi, author of Poems of Alexandria and New York
Sarajevo Firewood
The Madness of Despair
Mahmoud Shukair – see special feature of Banipal 70 (Spring 2021)
LATEST NEWS
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Link to poems by Mosab Abu Toha, published in Banipal 71 (Summer 2021), available to read online
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Link to poem by Liana Badr published in Banipal 74, now available as an online selection
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GRIFFIN PRIZE SHORTLIST 2023
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Banipal's first audiobook* * *
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Banipal Book Club
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