Marilyn Booth
Encyclopedia
Biography
Booth graduated summa cum laude from Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1978, and was the first female winner of the Wendell Scholarship. She obtained a D.Phil. in Arabic literature and Middle Eastern history from St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.St Antony's is the most international of the seven all-graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the...
in 1985. She received a Marshall Fellowship for her doctoral studies at Oxford. She has taught at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, American University in Cairo
American University in Cairo
The American University in Cairo is an independent, non-profit, apolitical, secular institution of higher learning located in Cairo, Egypt...
, and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She was director of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
The Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies is an interdisciplinary unit within the UIUC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois focusing on the cultures, societies and countries of the Middle East and South Asia...
at UIUC. She currently holds the Iraq Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
.
Booth has written two books (including one on the Egyptian
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
nationalist poet Bayram al-Tunisi) as well as numerous scholarly papers and book chapters. She has also translated several works of Arabic literature into English. Her work has appeared in Banipal
Banipal
Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year...
and Words Without Borders
Words Without Borders
Words Without Borders is an international magazine opened to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world’s best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers....
. She is a past winner of the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award
Arkansas Arabic Translation Award
The Arkansas Arabic Translation Award is a prize given for a notable English translation of a book-length literary work originally written in the Arabic language. The award is administered by the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas...
and runner-up for the Banipal Prize. She also served as a judge for the Banipal Prize in 2008 and 2009.
Girls of Riyadh dispute
Booth was the original translator of Rajaa Alsanea's bestseller Girls of RiyadhGirls of Riyadh
Girls of Riyadh, or Banat al-Riyadh, is a novel by Rajaa Alsanea. The book, written in the form of e-mails, recounts the personal lives of four young Saudi girls, Lamees, Michelle , Gamrah, and Sadeem.-Plot summary:...
. However, in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement in September 2007, she asserted that the author Alsanea and the publishers Penguin
Penguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...
had interfered with her initial translation, resulting in a final version that was "inferior and infelicitous". Booth also wrote about this incident in a scholarly article titled "Translator v. author" published in a 2008 issue of Translation Studies
Translation studies
Translation studies is an interdiscipline containing elements of social science and the humanities, dealing with the systematic study of the theory, the description and the application of translation, interpreting or both these activities....
.
Author
- May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt. University of California Press, 2001.
- Bayram al-Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies. Ithaca Press, 1990.
Translator
- Girls of RiyadhGirls of RiyadhGirls of Riyadh, or Banat al-Riyadh, is a novel by Rajaa Alsanea. The book, written in the form of e-mails, recounts the personal lives of four young Saudi girls, Lamees, Michelle , Gamrah, and Sadeem.-Plot summary:...
by Rajaa Alsanea - Thieves in Retirement by Hamdi Abu GolayyelHamdi Abu GolayyelHamdi Abu Golayyel is an Egyptian writer. He was born in 1967/68 in a Bedouin village in the Fayoum region. His ancestors arrived from Libya in the early 19th century to settle in Fayoum. Abu Golayyel migrated to Cairo in the early 1980s, and worked as a construction labourer on building sites...
(runner-up, Banipal Prize, 2007) - The Loved Ones by Alia MamdouhAlia MamdouhAlia Mamdouh also spelled Aliyah Mamduh is an Iraqi novelist, author and journalist living in exile in Paris, France. She won the 2004 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for her novel The Loved Ones...
- Disciples of Passion by Hoda BarakatHoda BarakatHoda Barakat is an acclaimed Lebanese novelist who lived much of her life in Beirut and later moved to Paris, where she now resides...
- The Tiller of Waters by Hoda Barakat
- Children of the Waters by Ibtihal SalemIbtihal SalemIbtihal Salem is an Egyptian short story and writer. She was born in Giza and studied psychology at Ain Shams University. She has worked in Egyptian theatre and radio. Her first collection of short stories, al-Nawras was published in 1989, followed by a second volume Dunya Saghira in 1992...
- Leaves of Narcissus by Somaya RamadanSomaya RamadanSomaya Yehia Ramadan is an Egyptian academic, translator and award-winning writer. She was born in Cairo in 1951 and studied English at Cairo University...
- The Open Door by Latifa al-ZayyatLatifa al-ZayyatLatifa al-Zayyat was born the 8 August 1923 in the city of Damietta in Egypt and is known as an activist and writer. She earned her Bachelors degree in English in 1946 from Cairo University and earned her PhD at the same university in 1957...
- Points of the Compass by Sahar TawfiqSahar TawfiqSahar Tawfiq is an Egyptian novelist, short story writer and translator. Born and raised in Cairo, she studied Arabic language and literature at Al-Azhar University. She has worked as a teacher and educationist in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia....
(winner, Arkansas Arabic Translation Award, 1994/5) - My Grandmother’s Cactus: Stories by Egyptian Women
- a novel by Hassan DaoudHassan DaoudHassan Daoud is a Lebanese writer and journalist. Originally from the village of Noumairieh in southern Lebanon, he moved to Beirut as a child with his family. He studied Arabic literature at university. During the Lebanese civil war that broke out in 1975, he worked as a journalist, a profession...
(forthcoming)