Barakat_Hoda_Voices-of-the-Lost
2022 Longlist

Voices of the Lost

Translated from Arabic into English
artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

In an unnamed country torn apart by war, six strangers are compelled to share their darkest secrets. Taking pen to paper, each attempts to put in writing what they can’t bring themselves to say to the person they love – mother, father, brother, lost love. Their words form a chain of dark confessions, none of which reaches the intended recipient. But their consequences will ripple through other lives, affecting strangers in ways the writers could never have anticipated…

Luminous and haunting, Voices of the Lost tells the moving story of characters living on the periphery, battling displacement, poverty, and the demons within themselves. From one of today’s most talented Arabic writers, this is the story of lives intimately woven together in a society that is tearing itself apart.

 

 

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Hoda
Barakat

Hoda Barakat was born in Beirut and has published five novels and two plays. Her novels have been translated into several languages and received numerous prestigious prize nominations, including the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for The Tiller of Waters (2000). In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Hoda Barakat was born in Beirut and has published five novels and two plays. Her novels have been translated into several languages and received numerous prestigious prize nominations, including the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for The Tiller of Waters (2000). In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Marilyn
Booth

Marilyn Booth is Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, Faculty of Oriental Studies and Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and was a research fellow at l’Institut d’Etudes Avancées, Paris, February-April 2022.

She has translated eighteen published works of fiction and memoir from Arabic, including recently Hoda Barakat’s Voices of the Lost and Hassan Daoud’s No Road to Paradise. She was co-winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, and her translation of Alharthi’s novel Bitter Orange Tree was published in May 2022.

Marilyn Booth is Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, Faculty of Oriental Studies and Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and was a research fellow at l’Institut d’Etudes Avancées, Paris, February-April 2022.

She has translated eighteen published works of fiction and memoir from Arabic, including recently Hoda Barakat’s Voices of the Lost and Hassan Daoud’s No Road to Paradise. She was co-winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, and her translation of Alharthi’s novel Bitter Orange Tree was published in May 2022.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
04/02/2021
Country
Lebanon
Original Language
Lebanese
Author
Publisher
Oneworld Publications
Translator
Marilyn Booth
Translation
Translated from Arabic into English

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