The Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2015

The ceremony of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2015 took place on 11 May during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabu, presented the awards to the winners. The winners were:

First: The Literature Award Majaneen Bait lahem (The Fools of Bethlehem), a novel by Osama Alaysa from Palestine, published by Nofal-Hachette Antoine (2013).

This novel is a unique literary creation that narrates the history of the place, traces the changes it went through by using the motif of madness in a way that reflects an entire intellectual period in the Arab world. The work finds inspiration from traditional narrative forms as such as those of the Arabian Nights and makes use of more recent narrative techniques, perceptively linking history and reportage, and mixing realistic presentation with magical realism. The wealth of character types and of subsidiary tales harmonizes beautifully with the main narrative line.

Second: Translation Award Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street) translated into Japanese language from Arabic by Hanawa Haruo from Japan, and published by Kokusho Kankokai (2013).

The translation of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy into Japanese constitutes an achievement that transcends the linguistic dimension, and constitutes a cultural dialogue between the Arab and the Japanese worlds through what the translation reveals about the social history of Egypt and the transformations that occurred in the decades between the 1920s and the 1950s.

BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015 217