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Rabat – Morocco’s 2019 Literature Awards (Prix du Maroc du Livre) ceremony took place on Friday, October 18, at the National Library, in Rabat. Ten Moroccan authors received an award at the ceremony.
This year marks the 51st anniversary of the national literature awards. The ceremony was organized by the Ministry of Culture. A number of public figures attended the event. Senior adviser to King Mohammed VI Andre Azoulay, Moroccan historian Abdelhak Lamrini, and other big names from the fields of politics, culture, and academia all attended the ceremony.
The ceremony was an opportunity to “put a spotlight on the efforts of the different laureates in the domains of creativity, literature, research, and translation,” according to the event’s organizers.
The Laureates of Morocco’s 2019 Literature Awards
The winners of the awards in the poetry category were Mustapha Melh for his collection of poetry “I Blame Nobody” (in Arabic), and Rachid Khaless for his book “Total War” (in French).
The narrative award went to Abderrahim Jiran for his work “The Stone and the Blessing” (in Arabic), while Moulaid El Adnani earned the Amazigh literature award for her book “The Recall of Nights” (in Amazigh).
Mohamed Said Soussan won the children literature prize for his work “A Mermaid From the Sky” (in Arabic).
In the field of social sciences, Ayad Ablal and Khalid Zakri jointly won the award. The first earned the reward for his book “Complex Ignorance, Religion, Religiosity, and Religious Issues in the Arab World” (in Arabic), while the second earned it for his work “Arab Modernities, From Modernity to Globalization” (in French).
The award for literature studies went to Ibrahim Al Hussein for his book “Caricature in Morocco, Irony and the Issue of the Forbidden” (in Arabic).
Ahmed El Mounadi won the award for Amazigh cultural studies for his work “Amazigh Modern Poetry” (in Arabic).
Finally, the translation award went to Hassan Taleb for his translation of “The Near and the Far, a Century of Anthropology in Morocco” by Hassan Rachik (French to Arabic).
The jury, composed of Moroccan academics from different fields, examined 191 books before coming up with the winners’ list.
