The winner of the International Man Booker Prize will be announced tonight, meanwhile, below is an interview of Hoda Barkat, published by The Guardian on May 13th. Go the The Guardian‘s website for the interviews of all other authors on the shortlist.

With the story of the people of Bsharre, a small Maronite community in the Northern mountains of Lebanon, Barakat tackles the broad and difficult question of minorities in the Middle-East and elsewhere: 

I am happy and proud to announce that RAYA agency has recently started representing Hoda Barakat for all her works, for world translation rights.
Hoda Barakat has published 5 novels, 2 plays, and chronicles. Her work has been translated in many languages, and has received several awards.

In the Spring of 2015, Hoda Barakat was on the shortlist of the International Man Booker Prize.
Discover her latest novel, The Kingdom of this Earth!

We’re very proud to share this news: The 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation will be awarded this week to Sinan Antoon for the translation of his own novel The Corpse Washer, published by Yale University Press.
 Paula Haydar is highly commended for her translation of June Rain by Jabbour Douaihy, published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.
Both June Rain and The Corpse Washer are on RAYA’s list of represented titles.
 The judging panel comprised literary translator and joint winner of the 2013 Prize Jonathan Wright, translator and writer Lulu Norman, broadcaster and writer Paul Blezard, and Banipal editor and trustee Samuel Shimon. They met in December 2014 …

For those new to the reading groups, And Other Stories is a fantastic independent UK publisher, and one way they select fiction to translate and publish is through reading groups. The groups help AOS get feedback from savvy readers, by reading as-of-yet untranslated novels, discussing them online and in person, and helping AOS pick what to publish.
 
One great part about the group is that it’s open to people who read in Arabic and people who don’t.
 
 
 
The And Other Stories Arabic reading group is back for a second round this winter, …