Today, Tuesday, the "Sheikh Zayed Book Award" announced the names of the winners for its seventeenth edition, with a total value of 7 million Emirati Dirhams (about 1.9 million dollars). Iraqi poet Jaafar Al-Alaq won the award in the Literature category for his book (Where to, O Poem? A Memoir). Algerian writer Saïd Khatibi won the Young Author category for his novel (The End of the Desert), while the award in the Translation category went to Tunisian Shukri Al-Saadi for his translated work (The Phrase and the Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Linguistic Acts) by American John Searle. The award for Arabic Culture in Other Languages was won by French author Matthieu Tillier for his book (The Rise of the Judge — Justice among Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Early Centuries of Islam), published by the Sorbonne University Press in Paris. The Tunisian critic Jalila Al-Taritour received the award in the Arts and Literary Criticism category for her book (Reflections of Women: Studies in Arab Women’s Self-Writing). The "Al-Ain" publishing house in Cairo was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the Publishing and Cultural Technologies category.
Ali bin Tamim, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre and Secretary General of the award, extended special thanks to the members of the Board of Trustees of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, its scientific committee, and its judges for "the efforts made during this cycle, resulting in the highlighting of a new, distinguished set of intellectual and literary works, which we rely on to be the nucleus of a renewed cultural movement to enrich the cultural scene in the region and the world."
Each winner in the different categories will receive 750,000 Dirhams, while the winner of the "Cultural Personality of the Year" award, to be announced in the coming weeks, will receive 1 million Dirhams. The award will honor the winners in a ceremony held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), coinciding with the launch of the 32nd Abu Dhabi International Book Fair on May 23. The award is named after Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder of the United Arab Emirates, and is an independent award given each year to cultural creators, thinkers, innovators, and publishers for their contributions that have a clear impact on enriching cultural, literary, and social life. This edition received 3,151 nominations from 60 countries, including 22 Arab countries and 38 countries from around the world.
