The Sheikh Zayed Book Award continues to receive participations across all of its nine categories as the closure date for the nominations on the 1st of September draws close. With the wrap up of nominations phase, the reading panels will commence their activities for a period of three days to be followed by the Award's judging panels work to assess and evaluate the filtered works across all categories.
According to Dr. Ali bin Tamim, Sheikh Zayed Book Award's Secretary General, "Young Author" topped the list with a share of 26% of total nominations received, followed by the "Literature" Category with 22%, and the "Literary and Art Criticism” category coming third with 12%. Meanwhile, "Children's Literature" was fourth with 11% of total nominations, closely followed by of "Best Contribution to the Development of Nations" and "Translation" categories with 10% and 9% respectively. The Award received varying number of nominations in the rest of its categories.
Commenting on the recorded figures to date, Dr. Tamim said: "For the second year in a row, the "Young Author" category tops the rest in terms of share of total nominations received, which highlights our successful reach to all young intellectuals and academics throughout the world. We thrive to honour intellectuals, researchers, writers, and translators, both young and seasoned, who have made significant contributions in literature, social sciences and the culture and knowledge of modern age from all over the world. And we take it as our duty to introduce new talents to the Arab readers and encourage creativity of youth" he continued.
The award was established in memory of the late founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, to foster greater scholarship and creativity by recognising and rewarding significant cultural achievements to Arabic culture Sheikh Zayed Book Award rewards innovators and thinkers in areas of knowledge, arts and humanities. Winners are identified through stringent scientific and objective principles to evaluate the merits of their creative work.
The award comprises a total monetary prize value of Dh 7 million U.A.E.. Each prize consists of a gold medal bearing the SZBA logo, a certificate of merit. The Cultural Personality of the Year winner receives a prize of Dh 1million, while the winners of the other categories receive Dh 750,000.