Organizers Announce 2023 Winners of the Tayeb Salih International Award for Creative Writing

FEBRUARY 15, 2023 – Today, the board of the Tayeb Salih International Award for Creative Writing announced the winning works in the award’s thirteenth edition. The award, sponsored by Zain telecommunications, is named in remembrance of the great Sudanese novelist and short-story writer Tayeb Salih, who is best-known internationally for his acclaimed Season of Migration to the North. 

This year, awards were given in three categories: novel, short-story collection, and critical studies. There was also a special “person of the year” award that went to Prof. Ahmed Ibrahim Abu Shouk.

In the novel category, this year’s winner was Egyptian author Alia Abdelmullah’s الخروج من البئر (Out of the Well). Second prize went to Sudanese author Mansour El-Souwaim’s طحلب أزرق (Blue Algae), and third to Egyptian author Adel Saad Mohamed Saad’s الكحكح وما الدنيا إلا مسرح كبير (Kuhkuh, Life is Nothing But a Giant Stage).

In the category of short-story collection, first prize went to Haitham Hashim Taher’s وشام النمور (Tiger’s Tattoo), second to Egyptian author Omaima Ez Eldin’s الموتى لا يستقبلون الصباح (Deaths Don’t Welcome the Morning), and third to Egyptian author Asma Awad’s امرأة الحجر (Woman of Stone).

The awards for critical studies went to Moroccan scholar Abdel Raheem al-Khayat (first), Egyptian Ahmed al-Saghir (second), and Sudanese scholar Bushra Khareef (third).

In each category, $15,000 went to the winner, $10,000 to the author in second place, and $8000 to the author in third.

Mansour El-Souwaim previously won a Tayeb Salih Prize for his novel Boundaries of Ash, which was translated by the critic Nassir al-Sayed al-Nour, who won a translation prize for his English version of the novel. You can read El-Souwaim’s short story “The Gizzard Tree,” tr. Nassir al-Sayed al-Nour, on ArabLit.

With thanks to contributor Nassir al-Sayed al-Nour.