ABU DHABI, (Pakistan Point News - 11th Apr, 2021) The board of Trustees of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) has approved the list of winners in the fifteenth edition (2020 - 2021), submitted by the Award's Scientific Committee.
Scheduled for the end of April, the announcement of the winners’ Names will be followed by a virtual award ceremony, during which the recipient of the ‘Cultural Personality of the Year’ accolade will be presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit, as well as a prize of AED1 million. Winners in other categories will each receive a gold medal, a certificate of merit and a prize of AED 750,000, said a SZBA statement on Sunday.
The winners' names were approved in a recently held annual meeting of the Board of Trustees, which was headed by Chairman of the Board Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, and was attended by members, including Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman, Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi); Zaki Nusseibeh, Cultural Advisor to the UAE President; Saood Al Hosani, Undersecretary, DCT Abu Dhabi; Dr. Ali bin Tamim, SZBA Secretary-General and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre; Abdulla Majed Al Ali, Executive Director of the National Archives; and Mouza Al Shamsi, SZBA Director and Acting Executive Director of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre.
Setting a new record in terms of submissions, this year's edition saw a total of 2,349 submissions across nine categories – a 23 percent increase compared to the 14th edition. Only 25 submissions were selected to be on the shortlists that were released in March, said the statement.
