Yemeni novel wins PEN translation award

A powerful novel illuminating forced disappearances in Yemen is among the winners of English PEN’s translation awards. Behind the Sun by Bushra Al-Maqtari is translated from the Arabic by Sawad Hussain (Tilted Axis Press). The novel was among a dozen books, say the organisers, selected for their outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and ‘their contribution to UK bibliodiversity’. The translation award follows on from the Johann Philipp Palm Award for Freedom of Speech and the Press that Al-Maqtari received back in December 2020. The translated novel will be published in 2022 a decade after it was first written. Bushra Al-Maqtari continued to write when war broke out in Yemen in late 2014. She was determined to stay and bear witness to what was going on, chronicling the death and destruction, and the lives of ordinary people in her non-fiction book, What you left behind: Voices from a forgotten war-torn country.

Photo by Lina Malers

https://sanaacenter.org/member/bushra-almaqtari