Today’s post comes to you from Emma Page
On April 23rd, the University of Reading Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP) in partnership with Outside In World (OIW) will present a webinar dedicated to Arabic YA in English translation, as part of their webinar series ‘Explorations in Translation for Children’.
Despite a huge, diverse base of speakers and vibrant publishing industries, relatively little Arabic-language literature is available in translation to readers of English. This is particularly true of books for children and young adults. The CBCP and OIW are thus excited to present this conversation between translators, advocates and scholars of Arabic-language writing for young audiences, Sawad Hussain, Susanne Abou Ghaida and Marcia Lynx Qualey.
Drawing on many collective years of experience in the field, our speakers will talk about what kind of Arabic-language YA is getting translated into English, who is translating and publishing these works, and what might be behind some of these trends. They will offer us a window into the scouting and pitching processes, discussing the specific challenges and opportunities that they face in translating children’s books from Arabic to English.
We will learn about advocacy initiatives such as ArabKidLitNow! and the Bila Hudood digital literary festival, hear about what titles they have translated recently, and what they are hoping to translate next.
In keeping with the celebration of April as National Arab American Heritage Month in the US, Hussain and Qualey will be discussing their co-translation of US-based, award-winning Syrian children’s author Maria Dadouch’s I Want Golden Eyes (University of Texas Press, 2025) and the significance and interest of Dadouch’s body of work more generally.
The webinar will take place on 23rd April 2026, 5pm-6.30pm UK time.
Online only. To join via MS Teams, please register here.
More about the speakers:
Sawad Hussain is a PEN Award-winning translator from Arabic. She has been shortlisted for The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize and the National Book Award for Translation, and longlisted for the Moore Prize in Human Rights Writing, among others. A former co-chair of the Translators’ Association in the UK, Sawad has also served as a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the 2023 National Translation Award. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library and the National Centre for Writing. In 2024, she became the first translator-in-residence for Wasafiri, and was the Spring 2025 translator-in-residence at PIIRS, Princeton University.
Marcia Lynx Qualey is a writer, publisher, editor, translator, and speaker. She is the founder of ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly, for which she won an Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature in 2024. Her personal focus is on translated literature for young readers, including YA, middle grade, and chapter books. Her most recent is a co-translation — with Sawad Hussain — of Maria Daadouch’s I Want Golden Eyes.
Susanne Abou Ghaida is a researcher specialised in Arabic children’s and adolescent literature. She has a PhD from the University of Glasgow, and her doctoral research was on the contemporary Arabic adolescent novel. From 2023 to 2025, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Aix-Marseille University, where she was carrying out research on The 13 Devils, an Arab espionage/adventure series for adolescents. She has written on a number of subjects, including multicultural picture books; disability; Arabic adolescent literature and reading response. She is currently the Vice President of the Young Adult Studies Association and Senior Editor of the International Journal of Young Adult Literature.
Further reading:
The following list features Arabic literature for young readers in English translation, published between 2000 and 2026.
(See also this same list in LibraryThing.)
Attaallah, Najlaa, Asad’s Secret, Trans. Sawad Hussain, Levine Querido Books (2026).
Shawa, Hooda, The Necklace of Seven Souls, Trans. Nour Jaljuli and Sawad Hussain, Restless Books (2026).
Dadouch, Maria, I Want Golden Eyes, Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey and Sawad Hussain, University of Texas Press/Center for Middle Eastern Studies UT-Austin (2025).
Morani, Djamila, The Djinn’s Apple, Trans. Sawad Hussain, Neem Tree Press (2024).
Nimr, Sonia, Thunderbird (Book Three), Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey, University of Texas Press (2024).
Shtie, Fida & Ruth Burus, The Number 25, Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey, Sunono Publishing (2023).
Merhej, Lena, Yoghurt and Jam: Or How My Mother Became Lebanese, Trans. Nadiyah Abdullatif and Anam Zafar, Balestier Books (2023). (GLLI review 14 May 2024)
Salih, Haya, Wild Poppies, Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey, Levine Querido (2023). (GLLI review 10 July 2024)
Mattar, Malak, Sitti’s Bird: A Gaza Story, Crocodile Books (2022). (GLLI review 27 March 2024)
Najjar, Taghreed, What Shall We Play Now?, Crocodile Books (2022).
Nimr, Sonia, Thunderbird (Book One), Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey, University of Texas Press (2022). (GLLI review 15 May 2024)
Nimr, Sonia, Thunderbird (Book Two), Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey, University of Texas Press (2022).
Buti, Lateefa, Hatless, Trans. Nancy Roberts, Darf Children’s Books (2021).
Fakhreddine, Jawdat, Thirty Poems for Children, Trans. Huda Fakhreddine, Bookland Press (2021).
Hachimi Alaoui, Amina, Alya and the Three Cats, Trans. Nathaniel Penn, Chouette Publishing/CrackBoom! Books (2020). (GLLI review 17 March 2021)
Nimr, Sonia, Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands, Trans. Marcia Lynx Qualey, Interlink (2020). (GLLI review 29 May 2024)
Salah Al-Mahdi, Ahmad, Reem: Into the Unknown, Trans. Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi, Samawy/Kydala (2020).
Ali Al Kabani, Abeer, Nour’s Escape, Trans. Ruth Ahmedzai, Darf Children’s Books (2019).
Bsharat, Ahlam, Trees for Absentees, Trans. Ruth Ahmedzai & Sue Copeland, Neem Tree Press (2019). (GLLI review 10 March 2021)
Hajo, Gulnar, The Dot, Trans. Ruth Ahmedzai, Darf Children’s Books (2019). (GLLI review 3 September 2019)
Kaadan, Nadine, Tomorrow, Lantana Press (2019). (GLLI review 10 March 2019)
Najjar, Taghreed, My Brother and Me, Trans. Michelle Hartman, CrackBoom! Books (2019).
Najjar, Taghreed, The Ghoul, Trans. Michel Moushabeck, Interlink (2019).
Sharafeddine, Fatima & Mahfouz Barraj, Samar, Ghady & Rawan, Trans. Sawad Hussain and Marcia Lynx Qualey, University of Texas Press (2019).
Najjar, Taghreed, Watermelon Madness, Trans. Michelle Hartman and Tameem Hartman, CrackBoom! Books (2018).
Abu-alhayyat, Maya, The Blue Pool of Questions, Trans. Hanan Awad, Penny Candy Books (2017).
Bsharat, Ahlam, Code Name Butterfly, Trans. Nancy Roberts, Neem Tree Press (2016). (GLLI review 9 January 2017)
Najjar, Taghreed, The Little Green Drum, Retold by Lucy Coats, Orion Books (2015).
Sharafeddine, Fatima, The Amazing Discoveries of Ibn Sina, Trans. Intelaq Mohammed Ali, Groundwood (2015).
Sharafeddine, Fatima, The Amazing Travels of Ibn Battuta, Trans. Intelaq Mohammed Ali, Groundwood (2014).
Koraytem, Salma, I am a Woolly Hat, Retold by Vivian French, Orion Books (2013).
Sharafeddine, Fatima, The Servant, Groundwood Books (2013). (GLLI review 9 January 2017)
Alkhayyat, Maitha, My Own Special Way, Trans. Fatima Sharafeddine / Retold by Vivian French, Orion Books (2012).
Sharafeddine, Fatima, Chez Moi, C’est la Guerre [In My City, There’s a War], Mijade (2008).
Ellabbad, Mohieddin, The Illustrator’s Notebook, Trans. Sarah Quinn, Groundwood Books (1999/2006).
Sharafeddine, Fatima, Fi-Madinati Harb [In My City, There’s a War], Beirut: Asala Publishers (2005).
Nasrallah, Emily, What Happened to Zeeko, Trans. Denys Johnson-Davies, Hoopoe Books (2000).
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 