American translator of Omani novel Honey Hunger wins Dh20,000 Saif Ghobash Banipal prize

American scholar and translator of Arabic literature Marilyn Booth has been awarded the 2025 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her work on Honey Hunger by Omani author Dr Zahran Alqasmi.

Set in the remote highlands of Oman, Honey Hunger tells the story of Azzan, a beekeeper who retreats into the mountains to rebuild both his life and his hives. As Azzan becomes increasingly immersed in nature and the practice of beekeeping, he forms bonds with fellow honey hunters. What unfolds is a lyrical narrative of loss, addiction, resilience, healing and the fragile balance between humans and nature.

The judging panel selected Honey Hunger as the winner, praising the work for the quality of its language and style in translation, as well as for the significance of the themes explored in the novel, including love, addiction and the environment.

Editor and author Nashwa Nasreldin said the work “is more than a story; it’s a quiet, evocative song, a lyrical lament and celebration, and a product of the deeply attentive approach by both author and translator”.

Susan Frenk, principal of St Aidan's College at Durham University and part of the judging panel, added: “Intensely poetic, yet profoundly rooted, Honey Hunger reveals the layers of contemporary Oman through voices that are too often unheard.”

Booth is an acclaimed translator of Arabic literature into English. Her works span Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, the first Arab novel to win the International Booker Prize in 2019, as well as Alharthi’s Bitter Orange Tree and Silken Gazelles.

She has also translated Hassan Daoud’s The Penguin’s Song and No Road to Paradise; and Hoda Barakat’s Voices of the Lost, Disciples of Passion and The Tiller of Waters.

Alqasmi is a novelist, poet and a doctor who specialises in infectious diseases. Honey Hunger is the third of his four published novels and his first to appear in English. In 2023, he won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for The Water Diviner. He has also published 10 single-author poetry anthologies and a collection of short stories.

Alqasmi was born in Oman in 1974 and, like his protagonist Azzan, he keeps bees.

For the first time, the prestigious Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation included a runner-up, awarded to Kay Heikkinen for her translation of Radwa Ashour’s Granada: The Complete Trilogy.

Kay Heikkinen, right, is the runner-up for her translation of Granada: The Complete Trilogy by Egyptian novelist Radwa Ashour. Photo: Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize

The work chronicles the destruction of Moorish Spain following the conquest of Granada by Spain’s Catholic monarchs in 1492, focusing on the Muslims who remained in Andalusia and struggled to maintain faith and hope.