An Evening with Luke Leafgren and Muhsin Al-Ramli

Held in association with the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature, Muhsin Al-Ramli and translator Luke Leafgren, will be joining us to discuss this year’s winner of the Banipal Prize, The President’s Gardens.

“A contemporary tragedy of epic proportions. No author is better placed than Muhsin Al-Ramli, already a star in the Arabic literary scene, to tell this story. I read it in one sitting.” – Hassan Blasim, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Iraqi Christ

Described as One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Kite Runner in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, The President’s Gardens is “a profoundly moving investigation of love, death and injustice.” Whilst tragic and deeply rooted in its context, Al-Ramli draws on universal, timeless themes in a novel that addresses “the wider tides of history.”

The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize is an annual award of £3,000, made to the translator(s) of a published translation in English of a full-length imaginative and creative Arabic work. The prize seeks to raise the profile of contemporary Arabic literature, as well as honouring the important work of individual translators in bringing the work of established and emerging Arab writers to the attention of the wider world.

Please join us for what promises to be a truly fantastic, celebratory evening of discussion.



Tickets for this event are free, but please register your interest via the Eventbrite link below.