LEILA contributors wrote the books and authors descriptions for the website and some of them translated samples of some books presented in the selection. They are Arabic literature specialists (academics, critics, writers, translators) and some of them were also part of the jury who have contributed to the books and authors selection.
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Ranya Abdelrahman
Abdelrahman is a translator of Arabic literatureinto English. After working for more than 16 years in theinformation technology industry, she changed careers andjoined the Emirates Literature Foundation to pursueher interest in books and promoting reading. Shediscovered her passion for translation during her time atthe Foundation, where she […] Read more
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Chakib Ararou
Chakib Ararou is a literary translator born in Rabat (Morocco) in 1992. He is an alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, France) and is currently conducting his PhD research on modern Arabic literature. Specialising in 20th and 21st century Moroccan literature […] Read more
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Elisabetta Bartuli
Elisabetta Bartuli researches contemporary Arabic literature and trans-cultural dialogue and translates from Arabic to Italian. She is a scout for Arabic Literature at various publishing houses and cultural institutions where she introduces Arab authors. She taught Arabic literature from 2000 to […] Read more
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Jessica Binks
Jessica Binks holds a BA from Cambridge University inArabic and Hebrew and is currently studying for an MA inArabic and Semitic studies at Aix-Marseille University. Herresearch focuses on the representation of minoritycommunities across the MENA region. She has workedvariously as […] Read more
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Hiyem Cheurfa
Hiyem Cheurfa is an assistant professor of literature based in Algeria. She has a PhD in comparative literature from Lancaster University and is an associate fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. She specialises in Arab women’s literature and is […] Read more
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Clara Défachel
Clara Défachel is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of St Andrews (UK) researching contemporary literary translation flows between France and the Maghreb. She also took part in several Arabic into French literary translation workshops led by […] Read more
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Cristina Dozio
Cristina Dozio teaches Arabic Language and Culture at the University of Milan and literary translation from Arabic into Italian at a post-graduate level at SSML Vicenza. She has translated, with Elisabetta Bartuli, novels by Alaa al-Aswany and Dima Wannous and her translation of Moroccan […] Read more
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Sara Elkamel
Sara Elkamel is a poet, journalist and translator living between her hometown, Cairo, and New York City. She holds an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University, and an MFA in poetry from New York University. Elkamel’s poems have appeared […] Read more
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Noemí Fierro Bandera
Noemí Fierro Bandera (Alicante, Spain, 1976) holds three degrees in Hispanic Philology, History, and Arabic Philology. She has been a full-time translator since 2013. She has lived in a variety of Arab countries including Yemen, Syria, Kuwait, and Libya. She […] Read more
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Pierre Girard
Pierre Girard studied literature, languages and social sciences in France then in Tunisia, where he settled for a few years. He works as a translator, an interpreter and a subtitler, and is currently involved in the edition of a catalog […] Read more
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Alice Guthrie
Alice Guthrie is an independent translator, editor, researcher, and curator specialising in contemporary Arabic writing. Her translation of Gazan writer Atef Abu Saif’s story “The Lottery” won her the Jules Chametzky Translation Prize 2019. Her translation of the complete short […] Read more
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Katharine Halls
Katharine Halls is an Arabic-to-English translator from Cardiff, Wales. She was awarded a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her translation of Haytham El Wardany’s Things That Can’t Be Fixed and her translation, with Adam Talib, of Raja Alem’s The […] Read more
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Sandra Hetzl
Sandra Hetzl translates, writes and curates projects with afocus on contemporary Arabic literature. She hastranslated collections of short stories, poems and nonfiction books by Rasha Abbas, Kadhem Khanjar, ArefHamza, Bushra al-Maktari, Aboud Saeed and Raif Badawiand her translations have been included […] Read more
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Coline Houssais
Coline Houssais is a translator, writer and researcher specialising in the cultural history of North African and Middle Eastern presence in Western Europe, as well as in music from the Arab world. A former resident of the Camargo Foundation, Institut […] Read more
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Iman Humaydan
Born in Lebanon, Iman Humaydan lives between Paris and Beirut. A novelist, journalist, and academic, she is the co-founder and current President of PEN Lebanon, and a board member of PEN International. She has published four novels. Read more
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iReMMO
L’iReMMO (Institut de recherche et d’études Méditerranée Moyen-Orient) is an independent think tank focusing on the Middle-East and the Mediterranean region. Through its various activities, it contributes to promoting knowledge of the region’s social, cultural, economical, and strategic challenges. iReMMO […] Read more
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Richard Jacquemond
Richard Jacquemond is an Associate Professor of Arabic, Professor of Modern Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Aix-Marseille and researcher at the Institute of Research and Studies on Arab and Muslim Worlds (Iremam, CNRS, Aix-en-Provence), where he is […] Read more
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Mona Kareem
Mona Kareem is the author of three poetry collections. Her poetry has been translated into nine languages, and appeared (in English) in: POETRY, Poetry Northwest, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry London, Modern Poetry in Translation, among others. She is a recipient of […] Read more
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Persa Koumoutsi
Persa Koumoutsi is a writer, literary translator, and essayist and has translated from Arabic 14 novels by Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz as well as many works by other distinguished Egyptian and Arab writers and poets. Her bibliography also includes the […] Read more
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Xavier Luffin
Xavier Luffin teaches Arabic at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. His research focuses on Sudanese Literature, and more widely on Arabic Literature in Africa. He is also a literary translator from Arabic into French. Some of the authors he has […] Read more
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Lola Maselbas
Lola Maselbas is a translator of Arabic to French, currently living in Lille, France. She completed a master’s degree in Literary Translation and Arabic studies at Inalco (Paris) in 2020. A reader of contemporary fiction, fantasy and poetry, she is […] Read more
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Nisrine Mbarki
Nisrine Mbarki she/her, (1977) is an Amsterdam based multilingual versatile writer, poet, curator and literary translator. As a curator of literary programmes she works for different international literary festivals and is a member of several literary juries in the Netherlands. Her […] Read more
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Lotfi Nia
Traducteur de littérature contemporaine algérienne, Lotfi Nia s’est spécialisé dans les nouvelles écritures maghrébines d’expression arabe, au sein du collectif de traducteurs “Levée d’encres”. Lit, parfois, des textes traduits à l’occasion de festivals. Traducteur de poésie : avec Supplément au […] Read more
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Sampsa Peltonen
Sampsa Peltonen, works as an audio-visual translator of documentaries by day, and a literary translator by night, translating from Arabic and French into Finnish. Authors he has translated from Arabic include Hassan Blasim, Alaa Al Aswany, Rajaa Alsanea, Ahmed Khaled […] Read more
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Baian Rayhanova
Baian Rayhanova is a Professor of Arabic Literature at Sofia University, Bulgaria. She obtained a PhD in Modern Arabic Literature in the late 1980s. Since then, she has worked at Sofia University and has also been a guest lecturer at […] Read more
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Rania Said
Rania Said is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at University of Massachusetts in Boston. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature and a degree in English language and literature from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Tunis. She studies autobiographical writing in […] Read more
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Sbeih Sbeih
Sbeih Sbeih has a doctorate in sociology and is a researcher affiliated with the IREMAM. He taught at Birzeit University in Ramallah and worked on culture and performance art in Palestine. His postdoctoral work focused on the production of the […] Read more
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Adam Talib
Adam Talib is an award-winning translator of Arabic literature into English. His translations include The Hashish Waiter by Khairy Shalaby, Sarmada by Fadi Azzam, and The Dove’s Necklace by Raja Alem (a collaboration with Katharine Halls). He is currently translating Ahmed Awny’s 2018 novel, Some Achieve Greatness. […] Read more
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Gabriel Tatibouet-Sadki
Gabriel Tatibouet-Sadki studied anthropology at the university Paris-Nanterre and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). He learned Arabic throughout his academic curriculum and conducted extended fieldwork in Kuwait. To further his learning, he also lived in […] Read more
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Nariman Youssef
Nariman Youssef is a Cairo-born, London-based literary and semi-freelance translator. She holds a master’s degree in Translation Studies from the University of Edinburgh, manages a small translation team at the British Library, and curates translation workshops with Shadow Heroes. Literary […] Read more
