Jonathan Wright (translator)
{{Short description|British journalist and literary translator}}
{{EngvarB|date=November 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}}
Jonathan Wright is a British journalist and literary translator.
Biography
Wright was born in Andover, Hampshire, and spent his childhood in Canada, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Germany. He attended Packwood Haugh School from 1966 to 1967 and Shrewsbury School from 1967 to 1971.
He studied Arabic, Turkish and Islamic civilisation at St John's College, Oxford. He joined Reuters news agency in 1980 as a correspondent, and has been based in the Middle East for most of the last three decades.{{when|date=January 2020}} He has served as Reuters' Cairo bureau chief, and he has lived and worked throughout the region, including in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Tunisia and the Arabian Gulf region. From 1997 to 2003, he was based in Washington, DC, covering US foreign policy for Reuters. For two years until the autumn of 2011 Wright was editor of the Arab Media & Society Journal, published by the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at the American University in Cairo.{{Cite web |url=http://www.aucegypt.edu/news/Pages/NewsDetails.aspx?eid=448 |title=AUC newsletter on Wright's appointment |access-date=23 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120312070452/http://www.aucegypt.edu/news/Pages/NewsDetails.aspx?eid=448 |archive-date=12 March 2012 |url-status=dead }}
Translations
| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" |
| Year
! Title ! Author ! Original Title ! Notes |
|---|
| 2008
| | Taxi | taksi ḥawadīt ʾil-mašawīr | His first major work, published by Aflame Books in 2008 republished by Bloomsbury Qatar in 2012 |
| 2009
| The Madman of Freedom Square | majnūn sāḥat ʾal-ḥurriyya | A collection of short stories longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2010 |
| 2011
| On the State of Egypt: What Caused the Revolution | | A collection of political essays |
| 2012
| Judgment Day | yawm ʾad-dīn | |
| 2012
| Life on Hold | kāʾin muʾajjal | |
| 2012
| Azazeel | ʿazāzīl | Won the Arabic Booker prize in 2009. Won the 2013 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation |
| 2013
| The Iraqi Christ | ʾal-masīḥ ʾal-ʿirāqī | Won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2014 |
| 2013
| Whatever Happened to the Egyptian Revolution? | māḏā ḥadaṯa laṯ-ṯawra ʾal-miṣriyya? | |
| 2014
| Land of No Rain | ḥaiṯu lā tasquṭ ʾal-ʾamṭār | Commended (runner-up) by the judges of the 2015 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation | |
| 2014
| Temple Bar | khammārat al-maʿbad | |
| 2015
| The Bamboo Stalk | sāq al-bāmbū | Won the Arabic Booker prize in 2013 Won the 2016 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation | |
| 2015
| Sleepwalkers | ʾas-sāʾirūn niyāman | Awaiting publication | |
| 2016
| The Televangelist | mawlānā | |
| 2016
| The Longing of the Dervish | shawq al-darwīsh | Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize | |
| 2018
| Critique of Religious Discourse | naqd al-khitāb al-dīnī | |
| 2018
| Frankishtayn fī Baghdād | Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize Won the Arabic Booker prize in 2014 | |
| 2019
| Jokes for the Gunmen | Nukāt lil-Musallahīn | Winner of the Multaqa Prize for Arabic Short Stories Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize | |
| 2019
| The Book of Collateral Damage | Fihris | Won second prize in the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in 2020 | |
| 2020
| The Egyptian Assassin | Abu ʿUmar al-Misrī | |
| 2020
| God 99 | Allāh 99 | Nominated for the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation in 2021{{Cite web|title=Banipal Trust for Arab Literature - The Banipal Translation Prize - The 2021 Award|url=https://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/award.cfm?y=2021|access-date=2021-11-26|website=www.banipaltrust.org.uk}} |
| 2021
| Here Is A Body | Huna Badan |
| 2023
| The Disappearance of Mr. Nobody | Ikhifaa' al-Sayyid La Ahad | Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize> |
Kidnapping and escape
On 29 August 1984, while on a reporting assignment for Reuters in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, Wright was detained and held hostage by the Palestinian splinter group led by Abu Nidal in a part of the Lebanon hostage crisis.{{cite news|title=Britain Asks Lebanon To Look for Journalist|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/04/world/britain-asks-lebanon-to-look-for-journalist.html|accessdate=7 August 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=4 September 1984}}{{cite news|title=Moslem Group Holding Journalist|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oXZkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=z34NAAAAIBAJ&pg=1618,1432548&dq=jonathan+wright&hl=en|accessdate=7 August 2013|newspaper=The Calgary Herald|date=5 September 1984}} The group wanted to exchange him for members imprisoned in Britain for shooting the Israeli ambassador, Shlomo Argov, in London in June 1982. Wright spent about one week in a small room in a country house near the town of Barr Elias and was then moved to a large villa near the Chouf mountain town of Bhamdoun, above Beirut. In the early hours of 16 September 1984, Wright escaped from captivity{{cite news|last=Salameh|first=Rima|title=British reporter evades kidnapping in Moslem Beirut|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19860927&id=Xj1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7OkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3428,3276487|accessdate=8 August 2013|newspaper=Gainesville Sun|date=26 September 1986}}{{cite news|title=REUTERS REPORTER RECOUNTS LEBANON ESCAPE|work=The New York Times |date=23 September 1984 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/23/world/reuters-reporter-recounts-lebanon-escape.html|agency=Reuters|accessdate=5 August 2017}} by removing the plank of wood covering a ventilation hole and crawling through the hole, which was about 10 feet above floor level. He reached the hole by dismantling his metal bedstead and using the frame as a ladder. Once outside, he walked along the Beirut-Damascus highway until he reached a checkpoint manned by the mainly Druze Muslim Progressive Socialist Party. The party militia held him incommunicado at Aley police station until 19 September, when party leader Walid Jumblatt told his aides to drive him to the Reuters office in Beirut.{{cite news|title=British Journalist Freed|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xPRSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AYMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4759,2668806&dq=jonathan+wright&hl=en|accessdate=7 August 2013|newspaper=The Deseret News|date=22 September 1984}} Wright has written a detailed account of his kidnapping.
See also
Awards and honours
- 2013 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for the translation of Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan{{cite web |url=http://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/award2013.cfm |title=The 2013 Prize |publisher=Banipal Trust |date=19 January 2014 |accessdate=19 January 2014}}
- 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for the translation of The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blassim
- 2016 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ogEgKwU2Cccav4WPYizo3ePjbtTg1S6yQusoVwYXEM/edit Eighteen Days with Abu Nidal's Men, the account written by Wright about his kidnapping]
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Category:1980s missing person cases
Category:Alumni of St John's College, Oxford
Category:Arabic–English translators
Category:British people taken hostage
Category:English male journalists
Category:English male non-fiction writers
Category:Formerly missing British people
Category:Foreign hostages in Lebanon
Category:Kidnapped British people
Category:Kidnappings by Islamists
Category:Missing person cases in Lebanon