19th Sheikh Zayed Book Award announced

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award, organised by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre under the auspices of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, announced the winners of its 19th edition across eight award categories, including the prestigious Cultural Personality of the Year category on April 30, 2024.

This year’s Literature laureate Hoda Barakat’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages, while this year’s Cultural Personality of the Year is Japanese author Haruki Murakami, who has been recognised by the Award’s Scientific Committee for his cosmopolitan perspective and commended by the Committee as a ‘global citizen par excellence’.

Other winners include: The Phantom of Sabiba by Latifa Labsir (Markaz Kitab, 2024), the winning book in the Children’s Literature category;Arab Literature in Southeast Asia in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by Prof.

Andrew Peacock (Brill, 2024) in the Arab Culture in Other Languages category; Orosius (Pisa University Press, 2024), an English translation by Italian scholar Marco di Branco of Kit?b Hur?shiy?sh, the Arabic version of Paulus Orosius’s Seven Books of Histories Against the Pagans in the Translation category; News of Women by Rasheed Alkhayoun (King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, 2024) in the Editing of Arabic Manuscripts category; The Right to Strive: Perspectives on Muslim Women’s Rights by Prof. Dr. Mohamed Bashari (Nahdet Misr Publishing, 2024) in the Contribution to the Development of Nations category; and Food and Language: Cultural Excavations in Arabic Heritage by Dr. Said Laouadi (Afrique Orient, 2023) in the Literary and Art Criticism category.