Library of Arabic Literature offers Arabic editions and English translations of significant works of Arabic literature from the seventh to nineteenth centuries.[1] "Our aim is to revive and reintroduce classic Arabic literature to a whole new generation of Arabs and non-Arabs, and make it more accessible and readable to everyone."[2] "Currently very few texts from this great corpus of literature have been translated."[3] The books are edited and translated by distinguished Arabic and Islamic scholars from around the world, and are made available in hardcover parallel-text format with Arabic and English on facing pages, as English-only paperbacks, and as downloadable Arabic editions. For some texts, the series also publishes separate scholarly editions with full critical apparatus.[1] Genres include poetry and prose, fiction, religion, philosophy, law, science, history, and travel writing.[2] The series is published by NYU Press and supported by a grant from the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute.[1]
The first volume was published in December 2012.[2] Similar dual-language classic series by other publishers include the Loeb Classical Library for Europe and the Clay Sanskrit Library for India.
The editorial board includes Philip F. Kennedy of New York University, who serves as the General Editor; James E. Montgomery, Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge, and Shawkat M. Toorawa, Professor of Arabic at Yale University, who serve as the Executive Editors; and Julia Bray (University of Oxford), Michael Cooperson (University of California, Los Angeles), Joseph E. Lowry (University of Pennsylvania), Tahera Qutbuddin (University of Chicago), Devin J. Stewart (Emory University), Sean Anthony (Ohio State University), and Maurice Pomerantz (New York University Abu Dhabi), who serve as Editors. In addition, an International Advisory Board offers guidance for the series as a whole.[1]
As of 2018, the Library of Arabic Literature has published more than thirty bilingual hardcover edition-translations and more than a dozen English-only paperbacks.[4] Arabic-only PDFs are also available for download from the website for free.
Its award-winning edition-translations include Leg Over Leg by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, edited and translated by Humphrey Davies, which was shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association's 2016 National Translation Award[5] and longlisted for the 2014 Best Translated Book Award, organized by Open Letter;[6] Virtues of the Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal by Ibn al-Jawzi, edited and translated by Michael Cooperson,[7] which won the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in 2016; The Epistle of Forgiveness by Al-Ma'arri, edited and translated by Geert Jan van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler, which won the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in 2015;[8] and Impostures by al-Hariri, edited and translated by Michael Cooperson, which won the 2020 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the Translation Category, shortlisted for the 2021 National Translation Award, was a Finalist for the 2021 PROSE Award in the Literature category, and was on The Wall Street Journal's list of Top 10 Books of the Year.