Sheikh Zayed Book Award

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award, one of the world’s most prestigious and well-funded prizes, to see whether we could post a call for nominations for the award’s 2009 session on your website.

Writers from across the world are invited to apply across all nine categories of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award – with AED 7 million (€1,282,868) in prize money available for the winners.

Two of the 2008 Sheikh Zayed Book Award winners, whose work was judged to have contributed to the Arab world’s cultural development, were based in Europe.

Ibrahim Al Kouni, who resides in Switzerland and spent his childhood in the desert in Western Libya, won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature prize for his novel A Call Not Too Far. Rifa’at Al Chadirji, who now lives in Britain, won the 2008 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Fine Arts.

We would therefore like to encourage any writers whose work has contributed to the Arab world’s cultural development to nominate themselves before the October 15 2008 deadline.

One of the 2008 Sheikh Zayed Book Award winners, whose work was judged to have contributed to the Arab world’s cultural development, resides in Switzerland. Ibrahim Al Kouni won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature prize for his novel A Call Not Too Far.

The award, which was established under the umbrella of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and in memory of Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the UAE, has been running for three years with nine categories open for nominations:

• Literature
• Children’s Literature
• Translation
• Young Author
• Fine Arts
• Publishing & Distribution
• Cultural Personality of the Year
• Development of the Country
• Best Technology in Culture

Winning authors from previous years have received considerable attention in the international media as well as coverage across the Arab world.

If you would like some more details on the application process for next year’s award, visit www.zayedaward.com