Now on its fourth year, the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (SHATIU) is back with a USD 2m prize pot.
The prize money will be shared by winners across three categories — Translation Prizes (USD 800,000), Achievement Prizes (USD 1m), and Prize for International Understanding (USD 200,000). Nominations are accepted until August 31, 2018.
Since it was launched in Doha, Qatar in 2015, the international prize has honored 45 individuals and five organizations whose works have contributed to the award’s goal of developing international understanding and encouraging cross-cultural interaction between Arabic and other world languages.
In this year’s Translation Prize, the board of judges will choose the best works in the English to Arabic and Arabic to English language pairs with the following cash incentives — USD 100,000 for the first place, USD 60,000 for the second place, and USD 40,000 for the third place.
In the past three years, 20 individuals have been awarded in this category, most of whom are university professors who have taught at leading academic institutions, including Oxford University, University of Basel, Sorbonne, McGill University, Islamic University, and the American University in Cairo.
Many are also poets, historians, and literary critics in their respective countries. As the award is currently limited to the humanities and the social sciences, the winners have translated mainly literary works, political treatises, and philosophical as well as historical accounts in English and Arabic.
| Category | Winners | Translated Work |
| Arabic to English 2015 | ||
| First Prize | Geert Jan van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler | Epistle of Forgiveness by al-Ma`arrī |
| Second Prize | Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee and Issa Boullata | The Reconciliation of the Fundamentals of Islamic Law by al-Shāṭibī |
| Third Prize | Ferial Ghazoul and John Verlenden | Chronicles of Majnun Layla and Selected Poems |
| Arabic to English 2016 | ||
| First Prize | Michael Cooperson | Virtues of the Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal |
| Arabic to English 2017 | ||
| First Prize | Paul Starkey, Catherine Halls | Shell of Mustafa Khalifa |
| Second Prize | Gabriel Fouad Haddad | Download lights in the mysteries of interpretation of the white |
| English to Arabic 2015 | ||
| First Prize | Imām `Abd al-Fattāḥ Imām | Multicultural Odysseys by Will Kymlicka |
| Second Prize | Fāyiz Ṣuyyāgh | The Age of Extremes by Eric Hobsbawm |
| Third Prize | Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Ma`īnī and Aḥmad Sālim Sālim `Alī `Īsā | A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages by Stanley Lane-Poole |
| English to Arabic 2016 | ||
| First Prize | Murād Tadghūt | Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers by Adam Gacek |
| Second Prize | Ḥasan Ḥilmī | The Cantos of Ezra Pound (selections) and Personae: Collected Shorter Poems (selections) |
| Third Prize | Muṣṭafa Muḥammad `abd Allah Qāsim | Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire 1453-1924 by Philip Mansel |
| English to Arabic 2017 | ||
| First Prize | Answer Imam | The Origins of the Political System, the Political System and the Political Decadence of Francis Fukuyama |
| Second Prize | Yousef bin Othman | Newtonian Studies of Alexander Querier |
| Third Prize | Hamza bin Qablan al – Muzaini | What kind of creatures are we? To Noam Chomsky |
Source: https://www.hta.qa/en/
As in years past, a USD 200,000 also awaits an individual or an organization that will be chosen for the Achievement Award. In 2015, this honor was awarded to the Al-Munaẓẓamah al-`Arabīyah li-al-Tarjamah (The Arab Organization for Translation), which has published over 300 high-quality translations since it was founded in 1999, according to the awards website.
In 2016 and 2017, four organizations also received the Achievement Award — Casa Árabe (Spain), Banipal Publishing (UK), Ibn Tufayl Foundation for Arabic Studies (Spain), and Sindbad (Actes Sud) (Paris).
German in the Spotlight
This year’s featured language is German. Up for grabs are prizes for the best works translated from Arabic into German (USD 200,000 USD), and from German into Arabic (USD 200,000)
SHATIU has also featured other languages in the past three years — Turkish in 2015, Spanish in 2016, and French in 2017.
| Category | Winners | Translated Work |
| Arabic to Turkish (2015) | ||
| First Prize | Muhammet Ҫelik | al-`aql al-akhlāqī al-`Arabī by Muḥammad `Ābid al-Jābirī |
| Second Prize | Osman Guman | Dalā’il al-i`jāz by `Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī |
| Third Prize | Ömer Türker | Sharḥ al-mawāqif by al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī |
| Turkish to Arabic (2015) | ||
| First Prize | Fazel Bayat | al-Bilād al-`Arabīyah fī al-wathā’iq al-`Uthmānīyah (four volumes |
| Second Prize | Abd al-Qādir `Abdallī | Huzur by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar |
| Third Prize | Ṣafwān Shalabī | La wujūd limāyud`ā bilghad. |
| Arabic to Spanish (2016) | ||
| First Prize | Salvador Pena Martin | Mil y una noches in four volumes |
| Second Prize | Ignacio Ferrando | Azazel – Youssef Ziedan |
| Third Prize | Mahmud Sobh | El diván de la poesía Árabe oriental y Andalusí |
| Spanish to Arabic (2016) | ||
| First Prize | Saleh Alman | Diez mujeres – Marcela Serrano |
| Second Prize | Sulayman Al Attar | El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha |
| Third Prize | Ali Ibrahim Menuf | Hatshapsut: de reina a Faraón de Egipto |
| Arabic to French (2017) | ||
| First Prize | Philip Figaro | Maqamat Hamdani |
| Second Prize | Frederick Lagrange | Purporting to preach to his servant |
| Mai Abdel Karim Mahmoud | Papa Sartre to Ali Badr | |
| French to Arabic (2017) | ||
| First Prize | Mahmoud Tarshona | Yemen and the Islamic Yemen, Radhi Dghvos |
| Jean Majid Jabbour | Time of humiliation of Bertrand Badie | |
| Second Prize | Jamal Shahid | Pleasures and days of Marcel Broust |
| Third Prize | Mohammad Hatami | Social and cultural assets of the Moroccan patriotism of Abdullah al-Arawi |
| Ahmed Al Sadqi | ||
Source: https://www.hta.qa/en/
This is on top of the Achievement Prizes awarded to translations from Arabic into languages selected annually (USD100,000 each). This year, the achievement prizes are for Bosnian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Swahili.
In 2017, an Achievement Award was given to translated works from Arabic to Eastern Languages (Urdu, Chinese, Farsi, Malay, and Japanese).
| Category | Winners |
| Achievement Award for Eastern Languages | |
| Urdu | Abdul Jabbar al-Rifai |
| Chinese | Shui Qingguo (Bassam) |
| Farsi | Mohamed El Said Gamal El Din |
| Malay | Abdul Aziz Hamdi Abdel Aziz |
| Japanese | Zaker Hafez |
Source: https://www.hta.qa/en/
The third and the last category is the Prize for International Understanding, which has a cash incentive of USD 200.000. SHIATU said this will be awarded to “individuals or institutions with substantive contribution to building a culture of peace and promoting international understanding.”
A report from The Peninsula Qatar on March 19, 2018 quoted Dr. Hanan Al Fayadh, the Award’s Media Consultant, as saying that a team from the steering committee will be visiting universities and academies in targeted countries to provide details.
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