Anna Ziajka Stanton

Professional Bio

I am a scholar of Arabic literature and culture, world literature, and translation theory, as well as a translator of Arabic texts in multiple genres. My first monograph The Worlding of Arabic Literature: Language, Affect, and the Ethics of Translatability (Fordham University Press, 2023) examines practices of translating Arabic literature into English that activate embodied forms of language and affective modes of reception to position Arabic literature ethically for circulation in the world literary system. The Worlding of Arabic Literature was the recipient of the MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Middle Eastern Studies, the ACLA Helen Tartar First Book Subvention, and a Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) Subvention to support publication of an open-access edition. I am currently working on a new book about arboreal narratives in the Arabic and Eastern Mediterranean literary imaginary. Other recent projects include editing a special feature on Arabic literary theory for the journal PMLA (Jan. 2024) and contributing a chapter on “Translation” for the new Cambridge Companion to Modern Arabic Literature. My translation from Arabic of Hilal Chouman’s novel Limbo Beirut was longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize and shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. I have been an editor at the Journal of Arabic Literature since 2014.