The children’s-literature longlist, meanwhile, was made up 10 titles from six Arab countries. Half of the longlisted writers were from the Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman), with the other half from Tunisia, Syria, and Morocco.
The 2022 Sheikh Zayed Book Award is open for submissions until October 1, 2021.
A few upcoming online events, through the end of May.
This year’s “literature” award went to Iman Mersal for her 2019 work of creative nonfiction Fee Athar Enayat Al Zayyat (In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat).
The longlist is made up of two poetry collections, a memoir by acclaimed Moroccan author Bensalem Himmich, and ten novels.
“I was immediately absorbed by the description of the Egyptian village, which I knew I would never experience so intimately as a visitor. The opening scene with its image of the novel’s 5-year old protagonist Medhat, racing across the canal that divides his village from the village of the Upper Egyptians had me hooked.”
This is your year to get a Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
