Sheikh Zayed Book Award Announces 2014 Literature Longlist

The eleven longlisted books include both poetry collections and novels, and came from a pool of 344 submissions.

Books in contention for the 2014 award were published in 2012 and 2013, and while there is no overlap with this prize and the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) longlist, the authors on the 2014 Sheikh Zayed Book Award longlist have many laurels to their names, including from the IPAF: Jamal Naji was longlisted for the IPAF in 2010 for his novel When the Wolves Grow Old and Lebanese writer Youmna al-Eid was an IPAF judge.

A surprising three poets who were on last year’s Sheikh Zayed Book Award longlist are on the longlist again this year: Lebanese poet Mohammad Ali Shams el-Din, Egyptian poet Farouk Shousha, and Tunisian poet Moncef al-Wahaiby.

The longlisted titles:

Nazlon on the Wind, by the Lebanese poet Mohammad Ali Shams al-Din (2013)

Many Are Your Gates: Features of a Poetic Biography, by the Egyptian poet Farouk Shousha (2013)

The Wall of Lokman Hakim, by the Omani writer Saif al-Rahbi. (2012)

The Foreigner, by Iraqi novelist Alia Mamdouh (2013)

After Coffee, by Egyptian author Abdirashid Mahmoudi (2013)

A Sky with My Name, by the Egyptian poet Ahmed al-Shahawy (2013)

Crossing the Mirror, by the Moroccan novelist Abdallah Damomat (2012)

Butterflies in Buddha’s Smile, by the Lebanese poet Shawqi Baze (2013)

The Thinnest Soul, by the Lebanese writer Youmna al-Eid (2013)

The Strange River, by Jordanian-Palestinian novelist Jamal Naji (2012)

The Diwan of Maritime Fishing, by Tunisian poet Moncef al Wahaibi (2013)

Lebanese poet Shawqi Baze also has previously won the Souq Okaz award, Lebanese poet Mohammad Ali Shams al-Din has won the Owais prize, Iraqi novelist Alia Mamdouh won the 2004 Naguib Mahfouz medal for her novel The Loved Ones, and Egyptian poet Ahmed al-Shahawy has won the UNESCO prize for poetry and Egypt’s Cafavy poetry prize, among many other awards to the above-listed authors.

The (unnamed) jury is currently reviewing the longlist and will meet mid-March to prepare a presentation to the Board of Trustees, which is authorized to choose a winner. The last two years, no winner was chosen.

More:

Interview of al-Rahbi on Banipal.

 Interview with Alia Mamdouh in The Handstand

 For the first time since 1988, Al-Shahawy’s poetry collection permitted in Saudi Arabia

Profile of Shousha in Al Ahram – Farouk Shousha: Cry my beloved language