The winner will be announced on November 23, 2023, at a ceremony in London.
By Hope Ibiale
Egyptian writer, Deena Mohamed, has been announced as a shortlisted author for the 2023 edition of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. She is shortlisted for her book, Your Wish is My Command.
The 2023 shortlist was selected from a longlist of sixteen titles and includes eight titles from seven languages, with Arabic represented twice. The shortlist is wholly made up of titles from independent publishers.
Other shortlisted books include Dorthe Nors’ A Line in the World, translated from Danish (Denmark) by Caroline Waight (Pushkin Press), Lalla Romano’s A Silence Shared, translated from Italian (Italy) by Brian Robert Moore (Pushkin Press), Amanda Svensson’s A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, translated from Swedish (Sweden) by Nichola Smalley (Scribe UK), Krisztina Tóth’s, Barcode, translated from Hungarian (Hungary) by Peter Sherwood (Jantar), Zhang Yueran’s, Cocoon, translated from Chinese (China) by Jeremy Tiang (World Editions), Margo Glantz’s, The Remains, translated from Spanish (Mexico) by Ellen Jones (Charco Press), and Bushra al-Maqtari’s, What Have You Left Behind? translated from Arabic (Yemen) by Sawad Hussain (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
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The prize is judged by Amanda Hopkinson, Boyd Tonkin, and Susan Bassnett. While speaking about the shortlist, Tonkin said, “This year’s eclectic shortlist travels far and wide – not only in the cultural and linguistic background of the authors chosen but in the genres and forms they use. From Yemen to Denmark, and from China to Mexico, our finalists confirm that outstanding women’s writing from around the world now reaches English-language readers in books of every kind. A wildly inventive graphic novel; a devastating documentary account of civilian casualties of war; an ideas-packed comic family saga; a haunting memoir of landscape, nature, and history; a witty and caustic suite of linked short stories: the shortlist embraces all this and much more, with each work carried into English by translators of exceptional skill and flair.”
The winner will be announced on November 23, 2023, at a ceremony in London, and the winning author and translator will receive a cash prize of £1000.
The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation was established by the University of Warwick in 2017 to “address the gender imbalance in translated literature and to increase the number of international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership.” This year, the organisers received 153 eligible entries representing 32 languages, which is the largest number of submissions to date. The prize is supported in 2023 by the School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures and the Warwick Institute of Engagement at the University of Warwick, the British Centre for Literary Translation, and the British Comparative Literary Association.
Deena Mohamed is an Egyptian graphic designer, graphic novelist, and illustrator. Your Wish is My Command is her first book.