First cycle of Al-Multaqa Arabic Short Story Prize announced

The Al-Multaqa Arabic Short Story Prize jury announced the 2016 shortlisted authors. The 5 Al-Multaqa nominees are:

‘Asal Al Nun’ by Mohamed Rafie from Egypt

Chair of the jury, Ahmed Al-Madeeni remarked on the tremendous amount of interest from Arab writers and publishers in the first cycle of the Al-Multaqa Prize. Submissions included a total of 189 short story collections from various Arab regions that featured a variety of styles and techniques for the genre. Authors showed their individuality in each collection by their descriptive backdrops and use of local colloquialisms.

Al-Madeeni also announced the award ceremony for the Prize winner will be held on 5 December, 2016. The ceremony will be hosted by the American University of Kuwait, with the attendance of many authors, critics, translators and publishers from around the world. In addition, the director of Institute Du Monde Arabe- an institute dedicated to promoting Arabic culture and literature- will also be in attendance, along with administrators of various Arabic writing competitions. Each of the 5 shortlisted authors will receive $5000; while the winner will receive $20,000, and have the winning collection translated to English for further publication.

The American University of Kuwait (AUK) is an independent, private, equal opportunity, and co-educational liberal arts institution of higher education. The educational, cultural and administrative structure, methods and standards of AUK are based on the American model of higher learning.