Homage to Banipal Magazine at the AECID Library 

On Monday, June 8, the Library of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID) in Madrid will be hosting the event “Banipal: A Life Building Bridges,” which will pay tribute to the publication and its founders for their work in promoting contemporary Arabic literature. 

Since it was first created in 1998, Banipal has played a fundamental role in the international circulation of contemporary Arabic literature, bringing some of the most significant voices in Arabic literary creation to readers around the world and helping to build bridges between languages, cultures, and literary traditions. 

Through a conversation with its founders, joined by writers, translators and contributors associated with the journal, the event will take a look back at the history of this unique publishing project and reflect on the role of translation as a space for dialogue, discovery and meeting. 

The event will be taking place on Monday, June 8 at 6:00 p.m. in the AECID Library’s Agora Hall (at Avda. de los Reyes Católicos 4, Madrid), with free entry until the capacity is reached. Please confirm your attendance by writing to biblioteca@aecid.es. 

Created in England in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Iraq’s Samuel Shimon, the journal Banipal was originally intended to counteract the lack of Arab literature in the English-speaking world. The journal’s name was meant to honor Asurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria, who founded the world’s first library in Nineveh. 

“The journal featured chapters of novels, short stories and poems in English translation, along with book reviews and the latest news. It showed the current Arab literary scene to English-language readers, and, of course, publishers” explains Obank. 

Thus, through the journal’s regular publication, hundreds of works by Arab authors were made available in English. Literary festivals began to invite writers to their events as a result of this translation work. 

Several literary anthologies were published in the West, including texts which were first published in the journal. The spring of 2020 saw the publication of Banipal’s first issue in Spanish and in October of the same year, Casa Árabe hosted the presentation of the second issue of the journal.