18 winners for Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity

Mohammed Ibrahim Al Qasir, Director of the Cultural Affairs Department at the Sharjah Department of Culture and Secretary-General of the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity (first edition), announced the winners of the 29th edition of the award, which is held under the patronage of His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, and organised by the Cultural Affairs Department.

The 18 winners represent various Arab countries and were recognised across the award’s six literary fields: poetry, novel, short story, playwriting, children’s literature, and literary criticism.

Mohammed Al-Qasir announced the names of the winners, stating that following the completion of the sorting and judging procedures and the deliberations of the judging committee, the Prize Secretariat approved the results, which saw Ahmed Salama Selim Abed (Egypt) win first place in the poetry category for Another Name for Things, followed by Ahmed Imam Mahmoud Bayoumi (Egypt) for No Knocking Behind the Door and Saddam Issa Bouaziz (Algeria) for I Move the Stones of Silence; in the short story category, first place went to Ahmed Adel Mohammed Nasser Al-Salmi (Yemen) for The Hidden Pulse of the Mountain, second to Maha Abdulkarim Abdul Badrani (Iraq) for The Museum of Shadows and Threads, and third to Badr Asouka (Morocco) for The Biography of Drowning; in the novel category, Mai Al-Mawlidi Al-Arabi Dhou (Tunisia) claimed first place for The Resurrection of Taniri, followed by Ahmed Mohammed Hamshari (Syria) for Rotation and Yassin Ben Mohammed Chenini (Tunisia) for The Dust; the theatre category was led by Zubaida Hassan Raja (Syria) for The Queue, with Ibrahim Issa Muhammad Ali (Yemen) second for The City of Ghosts and Sumaya Bounab (Algeria) third for Aslith, the Bride of the Rain; in children’s literature, Hussein Ni’ma Hussein (Iraq) won first place for The Book of Riddles, followed by Muhammad Ismail Abdullah Suwailim (Egypt) for A Bird Embracing Its Brother and Omar Al-Raji (Morocco) for The Melody of Spring.

WAM