The authors were scheduled for an intensive seven-day tour. The winner, who will take home $50,000, will be announced next Monday. Runners-up will each be given $10,000.
For those who haven’t followed along, the six shortlisted authors are:
Raja Alem for The Doves’ Necklace (Saudi Arabia)
Miral al-Tahawy, for her Brooklyn Heights (Egypt)
Bensalam Himmich, for My Tormentor (Morocco’s Minister of Culture)
Mohammad Achaari for The Arch and the Butterfly (former Moroccan Minister of Culture)
Khaled al-Berry for Middle Eastern Dance (Egypt, not the minister of anything)
Amir Taj Al-Sir f or his The Hunter of the Chrysalises (Sudan)
The award has stirred controversy this year as other years, with many prominent authors—such as Egyptian authors Gamal al-Ghitani and Radwa Ashour—refusing to be nominated for the prize. Al-Ghitani questioned the philosophy and criteria of the literary prize.
Nonetheless, the award goes on. To celebrate the authors’ arrival, a “book of excerpts” from the prize’s six shortlisted novels will be published later this week. Although the Emirates News Agency doesn’t mention which English- and Arabic-language newspapers will publish the excerpts, last year excerpts were published in The National and Al Ittihad.
The prize is now in its fourth year.