Writers in Translation, established in 2005 and supported by Bloomberg and Arts Council England, champions the best literature from around the world. To mark the programme's tenth anniversary, ten leading writers from around the world, many of whom have been supported in their work by English PEN, explore the themes of movement, freedom and narrative. Introduced by Amit Chaudhuri, the collection includes contributions Asmaa al Ghul - Palestine resident; originally from Bangladesh - Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Iran - Translated from the Persian by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak Ayelet Gundar-Goshen - Israel - Translated from the Israeli by Sondra Silverston Chan Koonchung - Born in Shanghai; raised in Hong Kong Hanna Krall - Poland - Translated from the Polish by Philip Boehm Andrey Kurkov - Russia - Translated from the Russian by Amanda Love Darragh Andrés Neuman - Born in Argentina; moved to Spain - Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor Alain Mabanckou - Born in Congo; raised in France; lives in America - Translated from the French by Helen Stevenson Elif Shafak - Turkey Samar Yazbek - Syria - Translated from the Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Author
Amit Chaudhuri was born in Calcutta in 1962, and grew up in Bombay. He read English at University College, London, where he took his BA with First Class Honours, and completed his doctorate on critical theory and the poetry of D.H. Lawrence at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Dervorguilla Scholar. He was Creative Arts Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, from 1992-95, and Leverhulme Special Research Fellow at the Faculty of English, Cambridge University, until April 1999, where he taught the Commonwealth and International Literatures paper of the English Tripos. He was on the faculty of the School of the Arts, Columbia University, for the Fall semester, 2002. He was appointed Samuel Fischer Guest Professor of Literature at Free University, Berlin, for the winter term 2005. He is now Professor in Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia. He was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.
