Zayed Book Award names eight finalists

Abu Dhabi:The Arab World’s most prestigious and well-funded Award named eight finalists in its “Literary and Art Criticism” category as part of its Longlist announcements for its 7th session for the year 2012/2013.

Earlier this year, the category had been redefined to cover a wider variety of works of criticism in the fields of art, cinema, music, theatrical plays, studies of image, architecture, sculpture, historical ruins, folkloric arts, and history of literature and theories.

The Award’s Reading Panels concluded their work, filtering a total of 1,262 works nominated for the Award’s diverse categories through September and October 2012. The prospects in Literary and Art Criticism were filtered out of a total of 139 works received, that is close to 11 per cent of total nominations.

This year, four works from Morocco and three from Iraq were on the list in addition to one work from Tunisia: Al Shi’er Wal Ma’na,(Poetry and Connotation), by Ebrahim Al Hajari of Morocco, Al Soufiyya wal Faragh, (Sufism and Void) by Khalid Bil Qasem of Morocco, Al talakki ‘inda Hazem al-Qartajni (Reception as per hazem al-qartajni) by Mohammad Binil Hassan of Morocco, Nazariyyat Al Alamat ‘ind Jama’at Vienna (The Theory of signs of Vienna Circle) by Mohammad Jabiri of Morocco, Al Takhaywol Al Tarikhi, (Historic Visualisation) by Abdullah Ebrahim of Iraq, Al naqd bayn al hadatha wa ma ba’d al hadatha (Criticism in modernism and post-modernism) by Ebrahim Al Haydari of Iraq, Haykalyyat al takween fi munamnamat maqamat al hariri (Structure in the illustrations of the Maqam of al-Hariri) by Wasma’a Al Agha of Iraq, and Al Mutawwala fil shi’r al-arabi al hadeeth (The ‘long poem’ in Arabic Modern Poetry) by Ahmad Al Jawwa of Tunisia.