Reem Bassiouney and Dr Ahmed Somai win the Sheikh Zayed Book Award

Egyptian novelist Reem Bassiouney and Dr Ahmed Somai – the translator of Italo Calvino – are among the list of winners for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award.

In its 18th year, the award received a record-breaking 4,240 submissions from 74 countries. The winners hail from the UAE, Tunisia, Germany, Egypt and China, and their work spans fiction, philosophy and history.

The prize is organised by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, with help from the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi, while the winners span seven award categories – including the newly launched Editing of Arabic Manuscripts category.

The winners will be celebrated at the official ceremony on 30th April during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. They will each receive a cash prize of 750,000 UAE dirhams (£160,621), with the Cultural Personality of the Year receiving 1m UAE dirhams (£214,161). 

The winning book in the Literature category is Al Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy by Egyptian author and scholar Reem Bassiouney, which depicts the history of Egypt through fiction. Meanwhile, the winning book in the Arab Culture in Other Languages category is The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam by German scholar Frank Griffel (Oxford University Press). In the Translation category, Somai was awarded for his translation of the Italian philosophical text The New Science by Giambattista Vico.

For the first time this year, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award featured a category for Editing of Arabic Manuscripts, which was awarded to Egyptian musician and musicologist Dr Mustafa Said for his study of a manuscript. Moreover, the Young Author award went to the Tunisian academic Dr Houssem Eddine Chachia, for his work examining the Morisco expulsion in 17th-century Spain.

The prize for Contribution to the Development of Nations was awarded to Emirati author Dr Khalifa’s Geographical Names – Legacy of Generations (Austin Macauley Publishers), on the history of geographic names in the Emirates. Finally, the Publishing and Technology prize was awarded to the publishing group Bayt Elhekma for Creative Industries, for its efforts in “building a cultural bridge between China and the Arab world”.

“These authors have significantly contributed to enriching Arab cultural, literary and social landscapes through their remarkable works,” said Dr Ali bin Tamim, the secretary-general of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre. “The global reach of this year’s winners exemplifies the profound influence of Arabic literature on the world stage and reinforces the Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s position at its centre, as a source of both recognition and ongoing support.”