The American University in Cairo Press will announce the winner of the 2014 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature on Thursday.
The ceremony will take place at AUC’s Oriental Hall, on the anniversary of the Egyptian Nobel laureate’s birth in 1911.
The Mahfouz Medal is awarded every year by a distinguished panel of judges, and consists of a silver medal, a cash prize of $1,000, and an English translation and publication of the winning novel by the AUC Press in Cairo and worldwide.
In welcoming the annual award when it was inaugurated in 1996, Naguib Mahfouz said: “The announcement of this award honoring writers and literature of the Arab world is the most pleasurable event on my birthday.”
This year’s panel of judges for the Mahfouz Medal consists of Tahia Abdel Nasser, Shereen Abouelnaga, Mona Tolba, Humphrey Davies, and Rasheed El-Enany.
To date, the Mahfouz Medal has been awarded to Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, The Other Place (al-Balda al-ukhra) and the late Latifa al-Zayyat, The Open Door (al-Bab al-maftuh) in 1996; Mourid Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah (Ra’aytu Ramallah) and the late Yusuf Idris, City of Love and Ashes (Qissathubb) in 1997; AhlamMostaghanemi, Memory in the Flesh (Dhakirat al-jasad) in 1998; Edwar al-Kharrat, Rama and the Dragon (Rama wa-l-tinnin) in 1999; HodaBarakat, The Tiller of Waters (Harith al-miyah) in 2000; Somaya Ramadan, Leaves of Narcissus (Awraq al-narjis) in 2001; Bensalem Himmich, The Polymath (al-‘Allama) in 2002; the late KhairyShalaby, The Lodging House (Wikalat ‘Atiya) in 2003; Alia Mamdouh, The Loved Ones (al-Mahbubat) in 2004; the lateYusuf Abu Rayya, Wedding Night (Laylat ‘urs) in 2005; SaharKhalifeh, The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant (Surawaayqunawa ‘ahdqadim) in 2006; AminaZaydan, Red Wine (Nabidhahmar) in 2007; Hamdi Abu Golayyel, A Dog with No Tail (al-Fa‘il) in 2008; Khalil Sweileh, Writing Love (Warraq al-hubb) in 2009; Miral al-Tahawy, Brooklyn Heights in 2010; the revolutionary literary creativity of the Egyptian people during the popular uprising that began on 25 January, in 2011; Ezzat El Kamhawi, House of the Wolf (Bayt al-Dib) in 2012; and KhaledKhalifa, La sakakin fi matabikhhadhihi al-madina in 2013.
The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature is sponsored by the AUC Press, which is the publisher of some 50 Naguib Mahfouz English-language editions, and has contracted more than 600 other foreign-language editions on behalf of the Nobel laureate in 40 languages. As the region’s leading English-language publisher, the AUC Press issues annually up to 60 new books and carries around 1,000 titles in print, including 200 works of Arabic literature in translation.
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