Dr. Hartmut Fähndrich, who was born in 1944, works as an Arabic scholar and translator. He taught Arabic language and cultural history at ETH Zurich from 1978 to 2014 and was editor of the “Arabic Literature” series at Lenos Verlag in Basel from 1984 to 2010. Hartmut Fähndrich published dozens of translations of modern Arabic prose and numerous studies on early Arabic biography and contemporary Arabic prose literature. He has received several awards for his translation work, most recently in 2016 with the Swiss Literature Prize - Special Prize for Translation; and the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (Qatar).