Nancy N. Roberts is a translator of

Arabic literature Arabic literature ( ar, الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is '' Adab'', which is derived from ...

. She won the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

Translation Award for her translation of Ghada Samman's '' Beirut '75''. She also received a commendation from the judges of the 2008

Banipal Prize The Banipal Prize, whose full name is the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, is an annual prize awarded to a translator (or translators) for the published English translation of a full-length literary work in the Arab ...

for her translation of Salwa Bakr's ''The Man from Bashmour''.

Early life and education

She was born and raised in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

. She completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology and religious studies at

Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabethtow ...

. Then she did a graduate degree in M.S.Applied linguistics from

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana University and, with ...

and went abroad. She lived in Lebanon for one year and five years in Kuwait and returned for about 7 years and she did M.A.Arabic language and Literature at Indiana University. She settled in Jordan and lived there from 1995 until 2015.

Career

*Indiana University-Bloomington, associate instructor in English, 1980-81. *American University of Beirut, Lebanon, instructor in English, 1981-82. *Kuwait University, Kuwait City, instructor of English in College of Commerce, 1982-87. *Earlham College, Richmond, IN, instructor in English as a second language, 1988-90. *Indiana University-Bloomington, instructor in Arabic, 1991-93. *AL al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan, instructor in English as a second language, 1994-97. *Federal Broadcasting Information Service, Jordan Bureau, translator, 1998-99. *Free-lance translator, Amman, Jordan, 1999-. *Mitchell Translations, translator from Arabic to English, 1994.

Works

Selected Translations: * ''Beirut ’75'' by

Ghada al-Samman Ghadah Al-Samman ( ar, غادة السمّان; born 1942) is a Syrian writer, journalist and novelist born in Damascus in 1942 to a prominent and conservative Damascene family. Her father was Ahmed Al-Samman, a president of the Syrian Universi ...

* ''Beirut Nightmares'' by

* ''The Night of the First Billion'' by

* ''Muntaha'' by Hala El-Badry * ''Time of White Horses'' by

Ibrahim Nasrallah Ibrahim Nasrallah ( ar, إبراهيم نصر الله; 2 December 1954), the winner of the Arabic Booker Prize (2018), was born in 1954 to Palestinian parents who were evicted from their land in Al-Burayj, Palestine in 1948. He spent his childho ...

* ''Over the Bridge'' by Mohamed el-Bisatie * ''Love in the Rain'' by

Naguib Mahfouz Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha ( arz, نجيب محفوظ عبد العزيز ابراهيم احمد الباشا, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. ...

* ''The Mirage'' by

* ''The Man from Bashmour'' by

Salwa Bakr Salwa Bakr (born 1949) is an Egyptian critic, novelist and author. Profile of the Egyptian Writer Salwa Bakr She was born in the Matariyya district in Cairo in 1949. Her father was a railway worker. She studied business at Ain Shams University, ...

* House of the Wolf by

Ezzat el Kamhawi Ezzat El Kamhawi ( ar, عزت القمحاوي) is an Egyptian novelist and journalist. In December 2012, El Kamhawi was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel '' House of the Wolf''. In June 2022 he was awarded the Samir ...

Roberts has also translated works on

Islamic history The history of Islam concerns the political, social, economic, military, and cultural developments of the Islamic civilization. Most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE. Muslims r ...

, jurisprudence and

Sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

. These include: * ''The Jurisprudence of the Prophetic Biography'', a translation of Fiqh al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah (فقه السيرة النبوية) by

Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti Mohammed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti ( ar, مُحَّمَد سَعِيد رَمَضَان ٱلْبُوطِي, Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān al-Būṭī) (1929 - 21 March 2013) was a notable Sunni Muslim scholar who was also known as "Shaykh of the L ...

* ''Islamic Jurisprudence According to the Four Sunni Schools, Volume I: Modes of Islamic Worship '' by Abd al-Rahman Ibn Muhammad Awad al-Jaziri * ''Apostasy in Islam'' by

Taha Jabir Alalwani Taha Jabir Al-Alwani (طه جابر علواني), Ph.D. (1935 – March 4, 2016), was the President of Cordoba University in Ashburn, Virginia, United States. He also held the Imam Al-Shafi'i Chair in the Islamic Legal Theory at The Graduate Sch ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Nancy N Arabic–English translators Living people 1957 births

Early life and education

Career

Works

See also

References