Marilyn Booth
Position:
Emerita Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World
Faculty/College Address:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies / Magdalen College
Email:
Ongoing Research Projects
- Arabic conduct literature, gender polemics, translation, and education, 1860s-1920s
- Feminism and backlash in Cairo and Beirut, 1894-1914
- Translation, adaptation and circulation of texts in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond, 18th-early 20th centuries
- Vernacular poetry and satire in the 10th-century Egyptian press
Monographs
The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz: Feminist Thinking in Fin-de-siècle Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-de-Siècle Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. Translated into Arabic as: Shahirat al-nisa’: Adab al-tarajim wa-siyasiyyat al-naw’ fi Misr. Trans. Sahar Tawfiq. Cairo: Al-Markaz al-qawmi lil-tarjama (no. 1265), 2008.
Bayram al‑Tunisi's Egypt: Social Criticism and Narrative Strategies. Exeter: Ithaca Press (St. Antony's Middle East Monographs no. 22), 1990. Translated into Arabic as: Ard al-habayib ba’ida: Rihla fi a’mal Mahmud Bayram al-Tunis. Trans. Sahar Tawfiq. Cairo: Al-Majlis al-a'la lil-thaqafa [Govt of Egypt], 2002.
Edited books and special journal issues
(with Claire Savina) Ottoman Translations: Circulating Texts from Bombay to Paris. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023. Single-authored introduction based partly on original research, co-authored chapter.
Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Introduction based partly on original research; one chapter.
(with N. Davidson) 25 Years of Revolution: Comparing revolt and transition from Europe 1989 to the Arab World 2014. Special Issue, Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 23: 2-3 (August 2015). Introduction, pp. 99-103.
(with A. Gorman) The Long 1890s in Egypt: Colonial Quiescence, Subterranean Resistance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. Co-wrote introduction; one chapter. Translation into Arabic contracted and in progress.
Women’s Autobiography in South Asia and the Middle East: Defining a Genre. Special Issue, Journal of Women’s History 25: 2 (Summer 2013). Introduction and one chapter.
Harem Histories: Envisioning Places and Living Spaces. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010.
(with A. Burton) Critical Feminist Biography. Special Double Issue, Journal of Women’s History, 21: 3, 4 (2009).
Recent book chapters and journal articles
Introduction: Ottoman Central: Circulating Translations from the Indian Ocean to the Eastern Mediterranean and on to the Far West of Europe. In Marilyn Booth and Claire Savina (eds), Ottoman Translations Circulating Translations from Bombay to Paris. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023. 1-26.
(with A. Holly Shissler) Fatma Aliye’s Nisvan-ı Islam: Istanbul, Paris, Beirut, Cairo, 1891–96. In Marilyn Booth and Claire Savina (eds), Ottoman Translations Circulating Translations from Bombay to Paris. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023. 327-88.
Listening. In Hulya Adak and Richard Wittmann (eds), Mapping Gender: What’s New and What’s Ahead in Ottoman and Turkish Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Pera-Blätter 36 (Orient-Institut Istanbul) (2022): 30-43.
Zaynab Fawwaz’s feminist locutions. Journal of Arabic Literature, special issue ‘The Cultural Turn’, 52: 1/2 (2021): 37-67.
Jeanne d’Arc, Arab hero? Warrior women, gender confusion, and feminine political authority in the age of high colonialism. In Boyd Cothran, Joan Judge, and Adrian Shubert (eds), Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Perspectives. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020): 149-77.
Introduction: Translation as lateral cosmopolitanism in the Ottoman universe. In Marilyn Booth (ed), Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. 1-54.
Translating Girlhood? Fénelon’s Traité de l’éducation des filles (1689) as a text of Egyptian modernity (1901-09). In Marilyn Booth (ed.), Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. 266-99.
Peripheral Visions: Translational polemics and feminist arguments in colonial Egypt. In Anna Ball and Karim Mattar (eds), Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018. 183-212.
Women and the Emergence of the Arabic Novel. Chapter 7 in Wa’il Hassan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Arab Novelistic Traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 135-53.
Translations: Novels, Memoirs, and Short Story Collections
Safe Corridor, by Jan Dost (Jan Dost, Mimarr amin, al-Qayrawan and Tunis, 2019). London: DarArab, forthcoming.
Honey Hunger, by Zahran Alqasmi (Zahran al-Qasimi, Jaw‘ al-‘asal, Ottawa, 2017). Cairo: Hoopoe, forthcoming 2025.
Sa’iba; or Verity, by Alice al-Boustany (Alis al-Bustani, Sa’iba, Beirut, 1891). Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, forthcoming.
Silken Gazelles, by Jokha Alharthi (Jukha al-Harithi, Harir al-ghazala, Beirut, 2021). New York: Catapult, 2024.
Bitter Orange Tree, by Jokha Alharthi (Jukha al-Harithi, Narinjah, Beirut, 2016). New York: Catapult; London: Simon and Schuster, 2022. As Narinjah: The Bitter Orange Tree, Toronto: House of Anansi/Anansi International, 2022.
Voices of the Lost [Night Post], by Hoda Barakat (Barid al-layl, Beirut, 2018). London: Oneworld, 2021.
Celestial Bodies, by Jokha Alharthi. (Jukha al-Harithi, Sayyidat al-qamar, Beirut, 2012). Dingwall, Ross-shire: Sandstone Press, 2018; New York: Catapult, 2019; New Delhi: Simon and Schuster India, 2019; Sydney and Auckland: Allen and Unwin, 2019; Toronto: Anansi, 2019; Whole story Audiobooks, 2019; large-print edn, Rearsby: W.F Howes Clipper, 2019.
No Road to Paradise, by Hassan Daoud (Hasan Dawud, La tariq ila al-janna, Beirut, 2013). Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize, 2015. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2016.
The Penguin’s Song, by Hassan Daoud (Hasan Dawud, Ghina’ al-batrik, Beirut, 1998). San Francisco: City Lights, 2014.
As Though She Were Sleeping, by Elias Khoury (Ilyas Khuri, Ka’annaha na’imatun, Beirut, 2007). Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago Books, 2012.
Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea (Raja’ ‘Abdallah al-Sani’, Banat al-Riyadh, London, 2005), New York: The Penguin Press, London: Fig Tree, 2007. At the author’s and press’s request, and after changes made to the translation without my input, this is listed as co-translated with the author.
The Loved Ones, by Alia Mamdouh (Al-Mahbubat, London and Beirut, 2003), Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2006; New York: The Feminist Press, 2007; London: Arabia Books, 2008. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize.
Thieves in Retirement, by Hamdi Abu Golayyel (Lusus mutaqa’idun, Cairo, 2003). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006; Cairo, Egypt: American University Press, 2007. Runner-up, Saif al-Ghobashi Banipal International Arabic Translation Award (U.K.) 2007.
Disciples of Passion, by Hoda Barakat (Ahl al-hawa, Beirut, 1993). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005. Cairo, Egypt: American University Press, 2006.
Leaves of Narcissus, by Somaya Ramadan (Awraq al-narjis, Cairo, 2001). Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize.
Children of the Waters: Short Stories by Ibtihal Salim. Austin: University of Texas Press (Ctr for Middle East Studies), 2002.
The Tiller of Waters, by Hoda Barakat (Harith al-miyah, Beirut, 1998). Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2001, 2004. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize.
The Open Door, by Latifa al-Zayyat (al-Bab al-maftuh, Cairo, 1960). Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2000. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize. Republished, Cairo and London: Hoopoe Books, 2017).
Points of the Compass: Stories by Sahar Tawfiq. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995. Winner of the University of Arkansas Press Arabic Translation Prize.
My Grandmother's Cactus: Stories by Egyptian Women. (My selection, translation, introduction). London: Quartet Books, 1991; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993, as Stories by Egyptian Women.
The Circling Song, by Nawal al-Sa،dawi (Ughniyat al-atfal al-da’iriyya, Cairo, n.d.). London: Zed Books, 1989.
Memoirs from the Women's Prison, by Nawal al‑Sa‘dawi (Mudhakkirati fi sijn al‑nisa’, Cairo, 1984.) London: The Women's Press, 1986; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994; London: Zed Books, 2020.
