Round the World in Children’s Books: Focus on Arabic Children’s Literature – Event on 9th June
In our 3rd Round the World event on 9th June, experts in Arabic children’s books will each recommend 2 titles they think should be better known.
Join us for another fascinating event looking at little known children’s literature.
Our panel comprises: Shereen Kreidieh is a publisher, teacher and academic from Lebanon. She is president of the Lebanese section of IBBY, a current member of the IBBY international executive committee and was a member of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award jury.
Yasmine Motawy teaches at the American University in Cairo and is a scholar, critic, translator, editor, consultant, and writing mentor in the field of children’s literature. She has served on many awards juries including the 2021 Bologna Ragazzi Award Jury and the 2016 and 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.
Salwa Shakhshir is the Managing Director of Al Salwa Publishers, an award-winning publishing house based in Amman, Jordan, dedicated to publishing Arabic children’s and YA books. They publish books for various authors in the Arab world and for ages ranging from new-borns to young adults.
Jochen Weber is head of the international language sections at the International Youth Library, Munich (IYL). He was also the project leader for the IYL’s project on Arabic-language Children’s Literature conducted between 2017 to 2021. Claudia Soeffner is the English language specialist at the IYL.
Maria Daadoush, 2022 Sheikh Zayed Book Award Children’s Literature Laureate, is a multi-award-winning children’s author and screenwriter based between the United States and Syria, who has published over 50 books in the Arab world and the USA. Her screenwriting includes the comedy series Maraya and the animation channel Spacetoon. She also worked as editor-in-chief for the children’s magazine Fulla Magazine. She completed her BA in Creative Writing at University of California, Los Angeles in 2016.
The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is one of the world’s leading prizes dedicated to Arabic literature and culture. Since 2006 the Award has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding work by authors, translators, publishers, and organisations around the world.
Now in its 16th year, the annual Award aims to recognise some of the most challenging and exciting work coming out of the Arab world or engaging with its culture, including both literary and scholarly works.
The Award does not only recognise major literary and cultural achievements, but also aims to boost the publishing industry through the Sheikh Zayed Translation Grant, which aims to help produce more quality Arabic books that are translated, published and distributed outside the Arab World. Funding is available for translation into any language of all winning and shortlisted books from the Literature and Children’s Literature categories of the Award.
To register for this event, visit the EventBrite page here.