Samah Selim is an Egyptian scholar and translator of
Arabic literature. She studied
English literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
at
Barnard College, and obtained her PhD from
Columbia University in 1997. At present she is an associate professor at the
Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures at
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She has also taught at Columbia,
Princeton and
Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...
universities.
Selim is the author of ''The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985'' (2004). She won the 2009
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
Yahya Taher Abdullah's ''The Collar and the Bracelet''.
She has also translated ''Neighborhood and Boulevard: Reading through the Modern Arab City'' by the
Lebanese
Lebanese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Lebanese Republic
* Lebanese people
The Lebanese people ( ar, الشعب اللبناني / ALA-LC: ', ) are the people inhabiting or originating from Lebanon. The term may al ...
writer
Khaled Ziadeh, and ''Memories of a Meltdown: An Egyptian Between Moscow and Chernobyl'' by
Mohamed Makhzangi
Mohamed Makhzangi (born 1950) is an Egyptian doctor and writer.
Early life
He was born in the town of Mansourah in the Nile delta. He studied medicine, and specialized in psychology and alternative medicine during a stint in the Soviet Union in ...
. Future releases include a translation of
Miral al-Tahawy's ''Brooklyn Heights'' (end of 2011).
In 2011, Selim won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award for her translation of
Jurji Zaydan's novel ''Shajarat al-Durr'', based on the life of the
Mamluk sultana. She thus became the first person to win both the Banipal Prize and the Arkansas Prize for Arabic literary translation.
Bibliography
Author
* ''The Novel and the Rural Imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985''
Translator
*
Yahya Taher Abdullah, ''The Collar and the Bracelet'' (2009 Banipal Prize winner)
*
Khaled Ziadeh, ''Neighborhood and Boulevard: Reading through the Modern Arab City''
*
Mohamed Makhzangi
Mohamed Makhzangi (born 1950) is an Egyptian doctor and writer.
Early life
He was born in the town of Mansourah in the Nile delta. He studied medicine, and specialized in psychology and alternative medicine during a stint in the Soviet Union in ...
, ''Memories of a Meltdown: An Egyptian Between Moscow and Chernobyl''
*
Jurji Zaydan, ''Shajarat al-Durr'' (2011 Arkansas Award winner)
*
Miral al-Tahawy, ''Brooklyn Heights''
See also
*
List of Arabic-English translators
The following is a list of translators primarily translating literary works in the Arabic language into English editions that have been published in print. The leading prizes in this field of translation are the Banipal Prize and the Arkansas Arabi ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Selim, Samah
Egyptian scholars
Arabic–English translators
Egyptian translators
Barnard College alumni
Columbia University faculty
Rutgers University faculty
Princeton University faculty
Academic staff of the University of Provence
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)