The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has announced a new set of shortlists for the 15th edition of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA).

The ‘Arab Culture in Other Languages’ category includes four titles, the ‘Translation’ category includes three, while ‘Publishing and Technology’ features three publishing houses.

Three of the four titles in the ‘Arab Culture in Other Languages’ shortlist are in English, all by American authors. These are Arabic Poetics: Aesthetic Experience in Classical Arabic Literature by Lara Harb, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020; Arabic Oration: Art and Function by Tahera Qutbuddin, published by Brill Publishers in 2019; and The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment by Alexander Bevilacqua, published by Harvard University Press in 2018.

The other title is in French, L’Empire Islamique: VIIe – XIe siècle (The Islamic Empire: 7th – 11th Century) by French historian Gabriel Martinez-Gros, published in 2019 by Passés Composés.

The ‘Translation’ shortlist includes Impostures by Al-Hariri, translated from Arabic to English by Michael Cooperson from the USA, and published by Library of Arabic Literature in 2020; Asr Elmany (A Secular Age) by Charles Taylor, translated from English to Arabic by Naoufel Haj Ltaief from Tunisia, and published by Jadawel Publishing, Translation & Distribution in 2019; and Noor men Al Sharq (Kayf Saadat Oloom Al Hadarah Al Islamiah Ala Tashkeel Al Alam Al Gharbi) (Light from the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam Helped to Shape the Western World) by John Freely, translated from English to Arabic by Ahmed Fouad Basha from Egypt, and published by National Centre For Translation in 2018.

The ‘Publishing and Technology’ shortlist includes Bibliotheca Alexandrina from Egypt, Dar Al Jadeed from Lebanon, and Switzerland’s Unionsverlag.

The 15th edition of Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s ‘Publishing and Technology’ category saw an increase of 82 percent in the number of submissions compared to the previous edition, with a total of 71, while the ‘Translation’ category received 175 entries. The ‘Arab Culture in Other Languages’ received 116 submissions this year, which represents a 41 percent increase compared to the 14th edition of the award.

The Award will be announcing shortlists for its other categories in the coming weeks.