Spain’s Arab Studies are awarded in Doha

Qatar gives acknowledgment to the Spanish language at the Sheikh Hamad Translation and International Understanding Awards

The Sheikh Hamad Awards for Translation and International Understanding were created in Doha, Qatar in the year of 2015, with the cooperation of the Forum for Arab and International Relations. It is a set of international awards overseen by an independent board of trustees, impartial panels of judges and a professional steering committee formed specifically for this purpose. The awards’ objectives include the dissemination and development of Arab and Islamic culture, ridding it of unfair distortions and stereotypes, and developing its relations with world cultures by transferring ideas, knowledge and science into the Arabic language, through the translation of original works from Arab culture into other world languages.

The awards are given in five different categories, the first two dedicated to translations of Arabic-language works into English, and vice versa, and in the year of 2016, categories three and four were given to translations from the Arabic into Spanish, and the reverse.

In the third category, which included the awards given to a translation from Arabic into Spanish, Salvador Peña was the winner for his work Mil y una noches (One Thousand and One Nights), with the second prize given to Ignacio Ferrando for Azazel, originally written by Youssef Ziedan. The third prize was awarded to Mahmud Sobh for his Anthology of Classical Arabic and Andalusi Poetry.

In the fourth category, which included the awards given to a Spanish-to-Arabic translation, prizes were given to Saleh Almani for his translation of the work Diez mujeres (Ten Women) by Chilean writer Marcela Serrano, Suleiman Al-Attar for his translation of Don Quixote by Cervantes into the Arabic language, and Ali Menufi for a translation about Hatshepsut.

The fifth category is for a Special Award granted to acknowledge one person’s or institution’s past record in contributing to the construction of a culture of peace and promoting international understanding. This is the category in which Casa Árabe received its award, along with Banipal, a journal of Arabic literature, and the Ibn Tufayl Foundation for Arab studies.