Dubai: The first International Young Author Awards has announced the shortlist for its Book Awards, which will be held in April next year in Dubai.
Fatima Butti Al Muhairi, chairperson of Dubai Quality Group and adviser to the Young Author Awards, said: “It’s my honour to be an adviser to such an initiative, to celebrate and nurture the talent of the next generation of authors, with leaders in the literary and creative field. I’m pleased to see the shortlist for the first International Young Author Awards, and I look forward to recognising more new talent — young authors of the future.”
Deeba Salim Irfan, the founder of the initiative, said: “We have decided to move the awards to April 2018 to allow us the time to include some of our guests who were extremely busy in October 2017. These are our first awards, and we want to execute them as envisioned, even if a bit delayed.”
Speaking on the need for such awards, Irfan, who is an award-winning poet, added: “We have announced the shortlist for the Book Awards. The nominations for the Literary Creative Awards is open. Young Author Awards has a few first-of-its-kind categories under this set, like Innovative Social Media Usage, Ambient Media for a literary purpose, Innovative PR, Creative Book Launch and Out of the Box concept to Nurture Young Authors. We are delighted with the encouragement received so far. We look forward to reaching out to more young people.”
Irfan’s poetry book, Charcoal Blush, was named finalist at the Book Excellence Awards 2017 in Canada.
For Literary Creative category nominations and other details, and more information, visit www.youngauthorawards.com
