Winners in the 18th edition gather onstage in Abu Dhabi at the Sheikh Zayed Book Award ceremony on April 30. Image: SZBA
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
75 Nations Represented in Zayed Award Submissions
As Publishing Perspectives readers will remember, the new round of submissions for the 19th edition (2024-2025) of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award—based under the aegis of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre (ALC)—opened in the late spring.
Today (November 21), we have a new report from the program, the Zayed Award’s administration saying that it received more than 4,000 submissions from 75 countries—including 20 Arab states and 55 other markets.
Five countries are now represented in this cycle of the award for the first time: Albania; Bolivia; Colombia; Trinidad and Tobago; and Mali.
As officials point out, the indicates that on its approach to a 20th anniversary, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award is widening its international influence, with its 10-category structure that embraces an array of cultural and creative fields.
Egypt led all participating countries in its number of submissions, followed by regional markets Iraq; Morocco; Saudi Arabia; Algeria; Jordan; Syria; Tunisia; Lebanon; and the United Arab Emirates.
In terms of markets standing outside the Arab world, leading sources of submissions included the United States followed by the United Kingdom; France; Spain; India; Germany; Italy; and Canada.
The Zayed program has announced that its reading panel—the committee that reviews and assesses all submissions—completed its review and closed the nomination period in early October 2024.
The panels were chaired by Dr. Ali bin Tamim, the Zayed Award’s secretary-general and the Arabic Language Center’s chair. Longlists are to be announced by the end of this year.
Members of the reading panel this year are:
- Saeed Hamdan Al Tunaiji, executive director of the Arabic Language Center and member of the Zayed Scientific Committee
- Bilal Orfali, professor and Sheikh Zayed Chair holder in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut
- Mohammad Al Safrani, professor and dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Taibah University in Medina
Abdulrahman Al Naqbi, director of the Arabic Language Centers’ literary awards department, also attended the meetings.
Dr. Ali Bin Tamim
In a comment on today’s news about the award’s new 19th cycle, Bin Tamim is quoted, saying, “The Sheikh Zayed Book Award continues to experience sustainable growth in quality and calibre of applications submitted, as well as in the number of participating countries.
“The award is one of the world’s most prestigious accolades celebrating cultural creators, thinkers, and young publishers. It seeks to honor their valuable contributions in various fields, including development, authorship, and translation in the humanities, as well as their efforts to enrich cultural, literary, and social life. This mission is inspired by the wisdom and vision of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Founding Father of the UAE, and that underlines the award’s significance and reinforces its status in cultural circles.”
Among the richest prize programs for books and publishing in the world, the Zayed Award program carries a purse of 750,000 United Arab Emirates dirhams (US$204,209) in each of its book categories and annually has been worth a total of some 7 million dirhams (US$1.9 million). That includes the special Cultural Personality of the Year Category award’s 1 million UAE dirhams (US$272,364).
Youth Playing Prominently into Zayed Award Programming
Guests at the 18th Sheikh Zayed Book Award ceremony in 2024 at Abu Dhabi. Image: SZBA
Bin Tamim and his team make it clear in their new communications that the Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s Young Author category actually leads in popularity, attracting 1,034 submissions and comprising 26 percent of the new 19th cycle’s total entries. In the framework of the program, the young authors honored in this category are generally producing scholarly works, demonstrating canny and original thinking in academic Arabic studies.
In other categories:
- The Literature category has garnered 1,001 submissions for the 19th edition of the honor, accounting for 25 percent of all applications.
- Children’s Literature received 439 entries, representing 11 percent of the total.
In descending order of popularity for submissions, the list includes: Literary and Art Criticism; Contribution to the Development of Nations; Translation; Arab Culture in Other Languages; Editing of Arabic Manuscripts; Publishing and Technologies; and Cultural Personality of the Year, in that order.
These figures, the Language Center staff asserts, “underscore the award’s pivotal role in fostering emerging voices and championing literary and cultural expression across generations.”
The Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s intent held by coordinators to “support the cultural sector, build bridges between various civilizations, foster an appreciation of knowledge, and reward efforts of researchers and authors. The annual award is presented to cultural leaders, thinkers, creative minds, publishers, and youth, based on scientific and objective criteria, for their contributions in the fields of development, writing, and translation in the humanities that have made a clear impact towards enriching cultural, literary, and social life.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on the Sheikh Zayed Book Award is here, more on the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Center is here, more on Arabic literature is here, and more on translation is here. More from us on publishing and book awards in the international industry is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the world media partner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
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