Peter Theroux
Peter Christopher Sebastian Theroux
Early life and education
Theroux was born in 1956 in
In a 1978 profile of the Theroux family, James Atlas wrote that then 21-year-old Peter “had completed five (unpublished) novels by the time he started college. Bound in dignified black covers with their titles embossed on the spines, these manuscripts—some of them written when he was only 14—have been acclaimed by his brothers as the work of ‘a mature satirist.’”[6]
He studied English literature at Harvard University, and studied for a year at the American University in Cairo.
Career
Theroux worked as a journalist in Saudi Arabia, and for a time was a stringer for The Wall Street Journal.[7]
Theroux's first published
- Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian Nobel Prizewinner
- Rites of Assent by Abd al-Hakim Qasim(Egypt)
- Naphtalene: A Novel of Baghdad by Alia Mamdouh (Iraq)
- Yalo by Elias Khoury (Lebanon)
- Journey into the Heart of My Enemy by Najem Wali (Iraq), in English in 2009
- Dongola: A Novel of Nubia by Idris Ali, Nubia (in English 1998, first Nubian author to be translated), winner of the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award
- The House of Mathilde by Hassan Daoud (Lebanon, 1998), in English 2002
- Saraya: The Ogre's Daughter: a Palestinian Fairy Tale by Emile Habiby(1990), in English 2006
- Cities of Salt (1984) by Abdul Rahman Munif (Saudi Arabia); English translation in 1987
His translations are highly regarded. Fellow translator Raymond Stock said of his work, "[T]here's none better. His translations are clear and poetic and read like they’re written in English."[7]
Theroux has also written his own books, including Sandstorms (1990), which recounted his travels in the Middle East. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Alex Raksin described Sandstorms as a "stunningly candid portrait of culture and politics in the Middle East".[8]
Theroux wrote Translating LA, about living in Los Angeles. He has contributed pieces to
Personal life
Theroux lives in Los Angeles, California.
Honors and awards
Theroux's translation of Idris Ali's Dongola: A Novel of Nubia won the University of Arkansas Press Award for Arabic Literature in Translation in 1997.[citation needed]
References
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-04-18. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ISBN 1-85743-217-7.
- ^ Cheuse, Alan (4 June 1989). "A worldly education Paul Theroux imagines a much-traveled writer's active erotic life". Chicago Tribune.
- ^ "Current Biography Yearbook". 1979.
- ISBN 9780787631277.
- ^ “The Theroux Family Arsenal,” New York Times Magazine, 30 April 1978, 24. [1]
- ^ a b "Profile: Peter Theroux: Found in Translation", Washington City Paper,
- ^ Raksin, Alex (July 22, 1990). "Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia by Peter Theroux". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ MazMHussain [@MazMHussain] (March 21, 2023). "Since people are asking. This was in response to pointing out that the author had cited a fictional Iranian activist as a source in their article. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/heshmat-alavi-fake-iran-mek/" (Tweet). Retrieved March 21, 2023 – via Twitter.
- ^ Kenner, David (September 21, 2020). "Saudi Arabia's imagined worlds by David Kenner". Institute of Current World Affairs.