Humphrey Davies

Humphrey Davies was an award-winning translator of some twenty works of modern Arabic literature, among them Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building, four novels by Elias Khoury, including Gate of the Sun, and Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s Leg over Leg. Born in London, Davies received a degree in Arabic Studies from Jesus College, Cambridge University, in 1968, before relocating to Cairo, where he would spend much of his adult life. Davies turned his appreciation of the city into a book, A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo (with Lesley Lababidi). His 2018 translation of Khoury’s My Name is Adam brought him the English PEN Translates award.