JEDDAH, 26 May 2007 — The King Abdul Aziz International Award for Translation, a new contest created in October by the King Abdul Aziz Public Library in Riyadh, is accepting submissions and nominations for the prize through the end of July.
The contest has five categories, each eligible for a SR500,000 first prize. There are two categories in humanities (works translated into Arabic and from Arabic), two in natural science (into and from Arabic) and one for the best translation for institutions.
The competition is open to all nationalities and nominations can be made by the translators themselves or others.
“This award was established to extend support toward bridging the gap among cultures and nations through translation,” said a statement posted on the award’s website. (Despite attempts by Arab News to get a comment about the contest, nobody at the Riyadh Public Library wanted to speak to the press.)
During the Fifth National Dialogue Forum (a semi-annual event hosted by the government) in Abha in December 2005, event participants called for a policy of promoting translation work in the Kingdom as a tool for cross-cultural exchanges.
Badriya Al-Bisher, one of the participants at that forum and a short story writer, stressed the necessity to translate Saudi literature into other languages in order “to promote the Saudi culture for the rest of the world that sees us only as terrorists.”
Khaled Al-Samti, a 26-year-old short story writer who translates Hebrew-language literature for King Saud University, said the award was a good idea, but thought the categories were too broad.
“The terms (of the contest) call for translated works in humanities that includes both creative writings and literary critiques, philosophy, sociology and maybe history too. That is a very wide range for one branch. How can we include all humanity translations into one category?” said Al-Samti, who called for the contest to be more specific and to find a way to promote Saudi translators specifically.
The award’s website is: www.translationaward.org.
