I Have Brought You a Severed Hand by Ghayath Almadhoun, translated by Catherine Cobham and published by Action Books, was the only title translated from Arabic to advance to the longlists for the 2026 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose. The longlists were announced on September 3.
The book of poetry contains work addressing the violence in Syria, written from the vantage point of exile in Europe. Almadhoun, who is based in Sweden, addresses readers with statements such as "I have brought you cities destroyed on top of their inhabitants so you can reconstruct them" and "I have brought you sarin gas so you can breathe deeply."
Cobham's translations render the original Arabic across multiple registers, the source material stated, including argument, aphorism, surreal imagery and analysis. The book is among 11 works on the poetry longlist and 12 on the prose longlist.
The shortlists will be announced on October 6, with winners selected on October 23 at a ceremony during the American Literary Translators Association's annual conference. The judges for poetry include Karen Kovacik, Karen Leeder and Robyn Creswell, while the prose judges are Addie Leak, Eva Apelqvist, Hanna Leliv, N Kalyan Raman and Priscilla Layne.
