In a victory for classical Arabic philology, Names of the Lion, David Larsen's translation
of the Hamadani-born Ibn Khālawayh's collection of epithets,  اسماء الاسد (Arabic text
ed. Maḥmūd Jāsim al-Darwīsh, Beirut, 1989) has won the 2018 Harold Morton Landon
prize from the Academy of American Poets!  The Landon Prize announcement reads:

 “Among a shortlist of superb translations of major works, David Larsen’s rendition from Arabic of al-Husayn ibn Ahmad ibn Khālawayh’s tenth-century Names of the Lion stands out for its meticulous, uncompromising, and idiosyncratic attempt to forge a poetics within which a text like this can find some footing. Essentially a list of more than 300 names for lion, surrounded by an elaborate apparatus that feels, at times, like a Borges story, Larsen provides a clear window into the vast world of classical Arabic lexicography, biography, and literary criticism. While the primary text may appear almost unlikely, Larsen’s construction of the apparatus in which it is embedded is an act of both deep scholarship and innovative poetics that, like the fate of the lion itself, is a tale of survival. One hopes that bestowing a prize for this kind of innovative work will lead to further recognition of translation projects that provide windows into the vastness of different chronologies, allegiances, and attentions.”