Book Award winners honoured

At a ceremony on Thursday at Louvre Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Hazza Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, honoured the winners of the 13th edition of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

Among those who were honoured by Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed were Moroccan writer and novelist Bensalem Himmich, who won the ‘Literature’ category award; Kuwaiti author Hussain Almutawaa, who won the ‘Children’s Literature’ category; and Algerian scholar Dr Abderrezak Belagrouz, winner of the ‘Young Author’ category. In the ‘Literary and Art Criticism’ category, scholar Dr Charbel Dagher from Lebanon won the award for his book Contemporary Arabic Poetry. The ‘Arab Culture in Other Languages’ category was won by British academic and researcher Philip F. Kennedy, while the UAE’s Arab Centre for Geographic Literature – Irtiyad al-Afaq won the ‘Publishing and Technology’ category award. Arabic scholars Professor Jaroslav Stetkevych and Professor Suzanne Stetkevych won the ‘Cultural Personality of the Year’ category.

The ceremony saw the attendance of Sheikh Theyab Bin Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the department of Transport; Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award Board of Trustees; Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) and Member of Board of Trustees of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award; Saif Saeed Ghobash, Undersecretary of DCT Abu Dhabi; Dr Ali Bin Tamim, Secretary General of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, and other ministers, intellectuals and important cultural figures.

“From Louvre Abu Dhabi, we honour a group of leading figures from the worlds of both literature and culture,” said Al Mubarak, Chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi. “We are honoured to congratulate this creative group of thinkers and researchers who have been awarded this year’s awards.

“We always strive to honour important literary, cultural and intellectual symbols in order to build a knowledge-based economy. Our founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, considered it an essential pillar in order to guarantee the nation a bright future. Ever since its first foundations were established, these awards have flourished,” he said.