Sheikh Zayed Book Award Announces Closure of Nominations for its Tenth Cycle

Abu Dhabi, October 20, 2015 – The Sheikh Zayed Book Award has announced the wrap up of its reading panels’ work, following the closure of its nominations period for the tenth Cycle (2015/2016) at the end of last month. The reading panel sessions were headed by Dr. Ali Bin Tamim, Secretary General of the Award, and joining him were Dr. Khalil Al Sheikh, Member of the Scientific Committee; Dr. Ali Al Kaabi, scholar from UAE University; and Dr. Dheyaa Al Kaabi, scholar from Bahrain University. With the conclusion of the reading panels’ work, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s judging panels will commence assessment and evaluation of filtered works which will extend until February 2016. A total of 70 works were named in the Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s long list in six categories, namely: “Contribution to the Development of Nations”; “Children’s Literature” [including adolescents’ books]; “Young Author”; “Translation”; “Literature” and “Literary and Art Criticism”. Each category has three judges who are appointed yearly to independently evaluate the nominations and submit their assessment results to the Scientific Committee for another round of assessment resulting in a short list, which then is presented to the Board of Trustees to decide on the winners. Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s judging panels’ remain anonymous to maintain the independence and integrity of the selection process. As for the remaining categories, the Award panel is still accepting nominations from academic and literary institutions in “Arabic Culture in Other languages” (for this cycle: English, French and Portuguese); “Publishing and Technology”; and “Cultural Personality of the Year”, and will announce the final counts on those in due course.