Tunisian academician and translator Samia Kassab-Cherfi is the winner of the 16th Ibn Khaldoun-Senghor Translation Award for her translation of the novel "Barg Ellil" by Béchir Khraïef, published by Sud Editions (Tunisia, 2023). The official award ceremony was held on December 15, 2023 at the headquarters of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), in partnership with the International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF). The award was presented by OIF Representative for North Africa Haoua Acyl and ALECSO Director of the Department of Science and Scientific Research Mohamed Sanad Abu Darwish. The members of the jury, headed this year by Bassam Baraké (Lebanon), commended the extensive documentary work carried out by the translator "to meet the challenges of this historical reconstruction that author Béchir Khraïef has sought to offer his readers, whether in terms of toponyms, the numerous intertextual references, the terminology related to armaments and armoury, music and alchemy," adding that Kassab-Cherfi's translation could rightly be described as a "consecration of the Tunisian literary universe." The jury, headed by Secretay General of the Union of Arab Translators (Lebanon) Bassam Baraké, was made up of Professor of Philosophy at Mohamed V University in Rabat, translator, essayist and literary critic Abdesslam Benabdelali (Morocco), Professor of French Literature and translator Zahida Darwiche-Jabbour (Lebanon), professor emeritus at the Ecole supérieure de traducteurs et interprètes (France), philosopher, translator and writer Mohammed Mahjoub (Tunisia) and translator and professor of French literature at Paris-Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi Hana Subhi (France and Iraq). Created in 2007, the Ibn Khaldoun - Léopold Sédar Senghor Award is the fruit of cooperation between the OIF and ALECSO. The Award is designed to encourage translators of studies and research works in the fields of literature and social and human sciences in the Arab and French-speaking worlds, and to promote mutual enrichment between Arab and Francophone cultures.Its aim is to promote cultural and linguistic diversity and encourage all forms of cultural exchange between the Arab world and the French-speaking world. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse