Denys Johnson-Davies in conversation with Prof. Bruce Ingram

Denys Johnson-Davies in conversation with Prof. Bruce Ingram
Renowned Arabic Translator Denys Johnson-Davies in conversation with Prof. Bruce Ingram at the bookHaus

Date: 2009-05-29

The Directors of Arabia Books and Haus Publishing invite you to celebrate

Denys Johnson-Davies: Memories in Translation

A Life Between the Lines of Arabic Literature

at the

bookHaus

70 Cadogan Place, London SW1X

on Friday, 29 May 2009, at 6.30pm

Denys Johnson-Davies will be in conversation with Professor Bruce Ingham (Emeritus Professor of Arabic Dialect Studies, SOAS) 

Described by Edward Said as ‘the leading Arabic-English translator of our time’, Denys Johnson-Davies has more than 30 volumes to his name, in a career spanning six decades. He has written about his life and work in Memories in Translation: A Life Between the Lines of Arabic Literature, a fascinating insight into his life as a translator of and contributor to literature from the Middle East.

Under the Naked Sky – Short Stories from the Arab World selected and translated by Denys Johnson-Davies. Short stories are a particularly distinctive genre in Arabic literature, and this volume contains contributions from Yusuf Idris (Egypt), Ibrahim al-Koni (Libya), Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt), Hanan al-Sheyk (Lebanon), Gamal al-Ghitani (Egypt), and Zakaria Tamer (Syria). 

In a Fertile Desert: Modern Writing from the United Arab Emirates, is the first volume of short stories to emerge from this commercially and culturally vibrant centre of the Arab world. Long before the riches of oil, this region was harsh, and the stories in this collection sum up the struggles of those early days; and the difficulties and dangers of bringing together the past and future of the UEA.

Denys Johnson-Davies has been described as ‘the trail blazer in the promotion of contemporary Arabic literature in English’ by his colleague Peter Clark. For his services to Arabic literature Denys Johnson-Davies was the first recipient of the coveted Sheikh Zayed Book Award Cultural Personality of the Year in 2007, awarded for ‘significant contributions to Arabic culture’. Having spent his childhood in Sudan, he chose to study Arabic at Cambridge and was recruited to the BBC Arabic Service in London. During the Second World War he moved to Cairo, where he started befriending and translating Egyptian authors, amongst them the Nobel laureate novelist Naguib Mahfouz, the master short story writer Yusuf Idris and the playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim. He also promoted the Syrian writer Zakaria Tamir, the late Tayeb Salih from Sudan and the greatly missed Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish. In the 1970s Heinemann invited Denys Johnson-Davies to be the Consultant for an Arab Author series. In subsequent decades his works were published by Quartet and the American University in Cairo Press. Arabia Books is proud to publish his latest collection of short stories from the UAE called In a Fertile Desert.  

Bruce Ingham was until his retirement Professor of Arabic Dialect Studies in the Department of Linguistics at SOAS, London. His particular interest focused on the dialects and oral literature of the Arabian Peninsula, especially the dialects of the Arabian Bedouin, covering the dialects of the Al Dhafir, Mutair, Al Murrah and Rwalah tribes. 

To RSVP for the event please email shop@hauspublishing.com