Darwish and Abu-Zeid win the 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize for poetry in translation

Exhausted on the Cross by the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and published by New York Review Books, has won the 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize for poetry in translation.

The winning title was chosen from a shortlist of six books which also included poets from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Korea, Mauritius, Mexico and Syria. The £3,000 prize money will be shared by Darwish and Abu-Zeid.

Rosalind Harvey, chair of the judges, said of the winning collection: “In its direct, stripped-back lines, the collection demonstrates both the limits and the necessity of language, inviting us to ask, together, how we can move through and beyond suffering.”

Abu-Zeid said winning the prize was a “huge honour”, “even more so because Sarah Maguire herself was such a champion of international poetry in translation. So I’m particularly grateful to receive this prize that bears her name.”

The Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation is awarded every two years for the best book of poetry from a living poet from Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Middle East in English translation, published anywhere in the world. 

It was established in honour of the founder of the Poetry Translation Centre, the poet Sarah Maguire, with the aim of showcasing the very best contemporary poetry from around the world and to champion the art of poetry translation.

Abu-Zeid continued: “Najwan and I both poured an immense amount of time and creative energy into Exhausted on the Cross, as did the whole team at NYRB Poets, and it is very rewarding to be recognised for our work by such an esteemed panel of judges."

To celebrate the 2022 shortlist the Poetry Translation Centre (PTC) has published The Sarah Maguire Prize Anthology 2022, featuring selections from each shortlisted book and an introduction by Rosalind Harvey.

Darwish is described by the PTC as "one of the foremost contemporary Arab poets". He published his first collection in 2000, and has published eight books in Arabic, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. He lives between Haifa and his birthplace, Jerusalem.

Abu-Zeid is a translator, editor, writer and scholar who works across multiple languages. He has received numerous awards, fellowships, honours and residencies for his work as a translator from Arabic and as a scholar, including the PEN Centre USA 2017 Translation Prize and a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts translation grant. He is also the author of The Poetics of Adonis and Yves Bonnefoy: Poetry as Spiritual Practice (Lockwood Press).