Sheikh Zayed Book Award concludes nominations phase for its fourth session

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award, one of the world's most prestigious and well-funded prizes, wrapped up its nominations phase for its fourth session of 2009/2010 with a total of 693 nominations received throughout its nine categories. Literature led the rest of the categories with 30% of total nominations, followed by Children’s literature with 18%, and the Young Author category which stood closely at 14% of total. Meanwhile, the categories of Translation and Fine Arts were less fortunate with 9% and 4% of total nominations received, respectively. The Award received varying number of nominations in the rest of its categories. Mr. Rashed Al Oraimi, the Award’s Secretary General, elaborated on this year’s nominations statistics; “A total of 25 countries contributed to this year’s session, of which were 19 Arab countries, including UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan, Oman, Mauritania and Somalia. Egypt scored highest as last year with 36% of total nominations, followed by Syria and KSA with 11% and 10% respectively.” The Award also received nominations from the United States of America, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey. “We are definite that this year’s contributions with such an international variety will heat up the race towards winning the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in February 2010.” Al Oraimi commented. With the conclusion of the nominations phase, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s judging panels commenced its work across all categories. Consequently, the Advisory Committee will soon be receiving the final judging reports to short-list winners for the approval of the Award’s Higher Committee. The winners will be announced in February 2010, to be followed by a grand ceremony to celebrate the winning achievements parallel to the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.