The American Literary Prize’s Best Translated Book Awards (BTBA), awarded by Rochester University, has named its 2020 longlists for fiction and poetry, which include three Arab writers.

 

The three longlisted Arab novelists are Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa for his book Death is Hard Work (Al-Mawt Amal Shaq), translated from Arabic by Leri Price, Iraqi novelist Sinan Anton for his novel (Fihris), translated from Arabic by Jonathan Wright, and Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan for her poetry book Time (Al-Qareb Al-Layli), translated from French by Sarah Riggs.

 

The Best Translated Book Award is an American literary award that recognises the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and is conferred by Three Percent, the online literary magazine of Open Letter Books, which is the book translation press of the University of Rochester.

 

Three Percent was launched in 2007 and carries that name because only about 3 percent of all books published in the United States are works in translation.

 

The Three Percent website will host debates on why one of these books of fiction and one of poetry should win until the announcement of the winners.