After a four-year break, the Joseph Zaarour Contest for Best Translation is once again one of the most popular cultural events for Lebanese secondary school students; this year’s high number of entries proved it! About 200 students aged 16–18 from schools in Lebanon competed in the 18th year of the contest, which took place on Saturday, 20 January 2024 at the Humanities Campus of the École de traducteurs et d’interprètes de Beyrouth (ETIB) in the Lebanese capital, as well as at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut’s regional campuses in Sidon, Tripoli and Zahleh. Students could choose between three texts in English, French, and Arabic on the theme of ‘Translators’ words’ that they clearly enjoyed translating into one of the contest’s three languages. Motivated by a passion for languages (and a challenge), they all left feeling pleased with their results and hopeful of winning the 2024 Joseph Zaarour Prize for Best Translation.
There was the same enthusiasm for the 2024 Secondary School Prize for French Translation, which this year had the engaging theme of ‘Happiness’, attracting one hundred secondary students on Thursday, 8 February 2024, for the 7th year of this contest organised by the ETIB in collaboration with Institut français du Liban. Twenty-two schools throughout Lebanon encouraged their students to take part in this contest, which is only open to the network of schools specialised in teaching French as a foreign language with CELF certification. There were two texts to be translated from French into Arabic (taken from Jean d’Ormesson’s Guide des égarés) or from Arabic into French (taken from Amine El Rihani’s Ar-Rihaniyyaat). ‘Happiness is not a goal, much less a career or an obligation, but a free gift, a surprise and the reward of those who do not spend their time cultivating it,’ Jean d’Ormesson rightly asserted. It was this happiness that the students and the contest’s organisers wanted to share that day: a happiness that will peak for the winners at the award ceremony that will take place at Institut français du Liban in Beirut in March.
Elsa Yazbek Charabati, Head of the Interpretation Department at ETIB, Saint Joseph University of Beirut