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SZBA Arab Culture in Other Languages shortlist

Sheikh Zayed Book Shortlists for 2016
Arab Culture in Other Languages and for Publishing and Technology Awards

Abu Dhabi 24 March 2016 – Sheikh Zayed Book Award revealed today the last shortlists for its tenth cycle. The list includes three titles fof the ‘Arab culture in other languages’ in English and French, and four publishing houses shortlisted for the ‘Publishing and Technology’ award.

Arab Culture in Other Languages Award Shortlist
One English title has been nominated under ‘Arab Culture in Other Languages’; The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letter, Arabic Knowledge Construction by Iraqi writer Muhsin J Al-Musawi, published by University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. The book is an engaging and deeply learned work of literary history. It presents a a compelling argument against the commonly held opinion that Arabic literature, since the glorious peak of the Abbasids, has somehow failed to be modern, and instead became locked in conventions that were stultifying and rarefied, created only for a small circle of initiates who were themselves censored and censuring. Musawi reviews this misconception and demonstrates, through his readings how this generally accepted account is profoundly mistaken.

In terms of French titles, two short listed works were named.

Angles et Grandeur by Egyptian author Roshdi Rashed, published by the Walter De Gruyter, Berlin 2015. The study discusses the concept of angle and its relation to Archimedean and non-Archimedean theories of measurement tracing the history of discussions from Euclid to Kamal al-Din al-Farisi, after whom the discussion was not resumed until Newton and Euler. The volume presents first editions of over twenty texts, either in Arabic or Greek of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the time. The texts are translated into French and supplemented with extensive commentary

Les Èlites Bagdadiennes au Temps des Seldjoukides by researcher Vanessa Van Renterghem from France, published by Presses de l’Ifpo, 2015. 

The study examines the history of Baghdad, in social terms, during a period rarely addressed by scholars; The Seljuks. The study features two-volumes; the first being a study of the social theory and the second featuring appendices and pictorial analysis.

Publishing and Technology Award Shortlist
The nominated publishing houses for the Publishing and Technology award are:

Asala Publishing, from Lebanon.

Obeikan Publishing, from Saudi Arabia.

Dar Al-Saqi, Lebanon.

Dar Toubqal from Morocco.

The SZBA will announce the winners in the next couple of weeks followed by the announcement of Cultural Personality of the Year.

For more information, go to the SZBA website here