The Abu Dhabi Fourth Conference for Translation, organised by the Kalima Project has opened yesterday under the theme Translation of Novels: Difficulties and Challenges.
Offering four specialised workshops on translating literary texts from English, Spanish and Japanese into Arabic and from Arabic into English, the workshops, for intern students from national and international universities, will be administered by a group of highly experienced Arab translation scholars.

In addition to the workshops, this years conference will host general sessions that review translation theories and problematic issues, with a special focus on novels.

The Abu Dhabi Conference for Translation is one of the pivotal cultural initiatives of the Kalima Project, run by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi), which has established solid strategies to enhance the translation movement into Arabic over the past three years.

Chair of the English Literature Department at the UAE University, Dr Siddiq Jawhar, who supervised several Masters and Ph.D. theses at Arabic and regional universities, will supervise the Arabic-into-English translation workshop, which will tackle both theory and application, as well as intensive practical exercises with the help of the latest educational tools.

Specialising in 19th Century literature, Professor Mohammed Asfour, Chairman of the English Department and Director of the Language Centre at Philadelphia University, Jordan, will run the English-to-Arabic workshop.

Accredited translator at the Spanish Ministry of Justice, Zainab Benyayah, Ph.D., University of Granada, Spain, will be leading the Spanish-into-Arabic translation workshop.

Dr Al Mumen Abdullah, will lead the Japanese-to-Arabic translation workshop. Associate Professor of Japanese linguistics at Tokyo University, Abdullah has a Ph.D. degree from Gakushuin University, Japan, and has been working across the fields of academia, translation and international co-operation for 15 years and is one of the few Arab specialists in Japanese linguistics and literature.

The closing day of the conference will see Dr Khalid Al Masri panelling a discussion session about translations challenges and different areas of specialisation, with the participation of acclaimed translators Subhi Hadid, Saeed Al Ghanemi and Fakhri Saleh.

Over the course of four years, the Abu Dhabi International Conference for Translation has provided trainees with the best learning experience, and several of them have built very successful careers in literary translation.