Maia Tabet

Maia Tabet is an Arabic-English literary translator with a background in editing and journalism.^[1] Born in Beirut in 1956, she was raised in Lebanon, India, and England. She studied philosophy and political science at the American University in Beirut and lives in the United States.

Tabet is noted for her translation of two novels by Lebanese author Elias Khoury: Little Mountain and White Masks. The former was the first Khoury novel to appear in English translation (in 1989) while the second was nominated for the 2011 Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation and won the judges' commendation. She has co-translated, with Michael K. Scott, the controversial Throwing Sparks (Tarmee bi-Sharar) by Saudi writer Abdo Khal, a novel which garnered the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), aka the Arabic Booker. In 2018, her translation of Sinan Antoon's The Baghadad Eucharist was published by the American University of Cairo Press, and the US publisher Mason Jar Press is bringing out in early 2022 The Monotonous Chaos of Existence, a collection of short stories by Jordanian author and poet Hisham Bustani. She is currently working on a novel by Lebanese novelist and academic, Rula Jurdi.

Tabet has also translated short stories, novel excerpts, and lyrical essays by Iman Humaydan, Najwa Barakat, Alawiyya Subh, Hala Kawtharani, Abbas Beydoun, and Elias Khoury (Lebanon), as well as Khaled Khalifa, Tamer Zakaria, and Elias Farkouh (Syria), Ahmed Fagih (Libya), Habib Selmi (Tunisia), Luay Hamza Abbas (Iraq), Ali Muqri (Yemen), and Amir Tag Elsir (Sudan). Her work has appeared in Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, Fikrun wa Fann (a publication of the Goethe Institut); Portal 9, Rusted Radishes, Words without Borders, The Punch Magazine, The Common, and the Journal of Palestine Studies, amongst others.

In addition to her avocation as an Arabic-English literary translator, Tabet is the associate editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.^[2] She has a serious interest in environmental sustainability and the history and art of the kitchen, in addition to a radical commitment to social justice. She is the mother of two adult daughters. ^[3]

See also[]

• List of Arabic-English translators

References[]