Winners of the nineteenth Sheikh Zayed Book Award announced 

Japanese author Haruki Murakami has been given the title of Cultural Personage of the Year because of the influence by his works on Arab literature. Find out who the other award winners were below. 

The latest novel by well-known French-Lebanese author Huda Barakat, Hind, or the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (Dar al Adab, 2024), received the Literature Prize, while the Children’s Literature Prize was awarded to the Moroccan author Latifa Labsir for her book The Ghost of Sabiba, which promotes greater understanding of autism.

The winner in the Arabic Culture in Other Languages category is a study on how the Arabic language and Arab culture are spreading in Southeast Asia, by a British scholar, Prof. Andrew Peacock. The winner in the Translation category was Italy’s Marco di Branco for his translation into the English of Kitab Hurūshiyūsh, the Arabic version of the Seven History Books Against Pagans by Paulus Orosius.

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA), organized by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Center, which forms part of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism, has announced the winners of its nineteenth edition, in eight award categories, including the prestigious Cultural Personality of the Year category, which was awarded to the Spanish institution Casa Árabe last year.

Acknowledged as one of the world’s most important awards devoted to Arab literature and culture, the Prize has honored writers, scholars, translators, cultural pioneers and institutions for nearly two decades. This year’s winners come from seven countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, France, Iraq, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

The nineteenth edition received more than 4,000 candidacies from 75 countries. Most notably, this year for the first time, entries were received from five new countries (Albania, Bolivia, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago and Mali), thus further emphasizing the award’s global influence and prestige.

The winners of the nineteenth Sheikh Zayed Book Award will be given acknowledgment at an awards ceremony to be held during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair on the upcoming date of April 28. Each of them will receive 750,000 dirhams from the United Arab Emirates (€189,040 / $204,195), whereas the winner of the award for Cultural Personage of the Year will receive 1,000,000 UAE dirhams (€252,053 / $272,264).

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