Winners will receive a gold medal, a certificate of merit, and a prize of $204,000.
Rabat – The Sheikh Zayed Book Award announced on March 28, the shortlist of the Literary and Art Criticism category which includes three titles, two of them Moroccans.
The award, often called the Arab Nobel Prize, honors intellectuals, researchers, writers, and translators who have made remarkable contributions and innovations in Arab intellectual, literature, social science, and culture. It is an independent cultural initiative administered by the Department of Culture and Tourism.
The three shortlisted titles include; A Parable Discourse, the Dialogue of Thought and Authority – a Deliberative Cognitive Approach by Moroccan researcher Said Jabbar, published by Konouz Al Maarifa in 2019 and The Ethics of Interpretation: from the Ontology of the Script to the Ontology of Comprehension by Moroccan author Mohamed El-Hirech, published by La Virgule Librairie et Papeterie in 2019.
Tunisia’s Khelil Gouia work, The Path of Modernisation in the Visual Arts, From Drawing to Painting published by Med Ali Éditions in 2020 is among the shortlisted titles.
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The Award consists of nine categories: Arabic culture in Other Languages, Children’s Literature, Contribution to the Development of Nations, Cultural Personality of the Year, Literary and Art Criticism, Literature, Publishing and Technology, Translation, and Young Author.
The winners will be announced in April, with a virtual ceremony honoring the winners held in May.
The winner of the Cultural Personality of the Year category will receive a gold medal, a certificate of merit, and $270,000 cash prize. While in the other categories, winners will receive a gold medal, a certificate of merit, and a $204,000 cash prize.
Professor Abdallah Laroui (Cultural Personality of the Year) and former minister of culture Bensalem Himmich (Literature) won the prize in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
