The organisers of the
Sheikh Zayed Book Award (
SZBA) have announced the long lists in six categories:
Contribution to the Development of Nations;
Children’s Literature [
including adolescents’ books];
Young Author;
Translation;
Literature and
Literary and Art Criticism, totalling some 70 works.
Each category has three judges who are appointed yearly to independently evaluate the nominations and submit their assessment results to the Scientific Committee for another round of assessment resulting in a short list, which then is presented to the Board of Trustees to decide on the winners.
With the conclusion of the reading panels’ work, the
SZBA judging panels will commence assessment and evaluation of
filtered works which will extend until February 2016. The judges submit their views to the Scientific Committee for a third round of evaluations to decide on the short list of the best nominations in this category, after which the winners are chosen.
The
long list for the Young Author prize in the tenth cycle consists of 11 titles out of 335 nominations. The nominations came from 18 Arabic countries, mostly from
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan. The successful nominations include
Al bunyat al dalaliya fil lugha al arabiya (The semantic structure of time in the Arabic language) by Abdel Kebir Elhassani of Morocco, published by Dar Konoz, Jordan in 2015.
The
long list for the Translation category is also 11 titles long, chosen from 109 nominations. The nominations originated from 14 Arabic countries, mainly Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and
Syria.
History of Egypt in the middle ages by Stanley Lane-Poole is in the list. This English-to-Arabic text was translated by Ahmed Salem Salem of Egypt, and published by Al Dar Al Masriah Al Lubnaniah, Egypt in 2014.
The
Development for Nations category has
six titles in its long list, chosen from 138 nominations. The nominations are from 14 Arabic countries, mostly from Egypt, UAE, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Representative is
Azmat al fikr al Arabi (Arab Thought Crisis and Metaphysical Questions), by Aziz El Hadadi of Morocco, published by Afrique Orient, Morocco, 2014.
There are a dozen books in the
long list for the Arts and Literary Criticism Award for its tenth cycle, selected from 151 nominations. The
nominees are from 12 Arabic-speaking countries, predominantly Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Iraq, in addition to nominees from three
non-Arabic speaking countries; Australia, the UK and New
Zealand.
The list includes works covering a variety of topics, from studies in
architecture and history to the arts, scientific research
in linguistics and the novel.
Al qudsi wal dunyawi fi al sard al Arabi (Sacred and earthly accounts in Arabic narrative) by Mustapha Ennahal of Morocco, published by Dar Bou Regreg of Morocco in 2014, is part of the list.
For the
Literature category, 15 titles out of 270 nominations have made it to the
long list. The nominations came from 19 Arabic-speaking
countries, mainly Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia
and Iraq, in addition to six non-Arab countries: Germany, Sweden,
Norway, the UK, the Netherlands and the US.
Three titles were published by Dar Al Saqi of Lebanon:
- Salatun libidayat al Saqee (A Prayer for the Beginning of Frost) by Lebanese poet Abbas Beydoun (2015)
- Ziryab (a person's name) by Saudi Arabian novelist Maqbul al-Alawi (2014)
- Bakhur Adani (Incense from Aden) by Yemeni novelist Ali Al-Muqri (2014)
A further three titles were published by Al Dar Al Masriah Al Lubnaniah of Egypt, which also has titles in the long list for
Translation;
- Al moriski al Akheer (The Last Moor), by Egyptian novelist Sobhi Moussa (2015)
- Ma wara’a al kitaba (Beyond Writing) by Egyptian novelist Ibrahim Abdelmeguid (2014)
- Yahdoth fee Baghdad (Happening in Baghdad) by Iraqi writer Rasool Mohammed Rasool (2014)
The SZBA was established in memory of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of UAE for more than 30 years, and of his pioneering role in promoting national unity and development. It is presented every year to outstanding Arab writers, intellectuals, and publishers as well as young talents whose writing and translation in humanities have objectively enriched Arab scholarship and cultural, literary, and social life.
The independent cultural award is administered by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, and valued at AED7 million.
Interested?
