Palestinian female author honoured at the 6th Palestine Book Awards
Nisaa FM: - The Palestine Book Award was held in London on 24 November 2017. The award honours leading authors from around the world for their contribution to literature on the topic of Palestine.
A total of 40 books on the Palestinian issue were submitted. Nine authors were eventually shortlisted for the award, among them three female Palestinian authors. One of the, Samia Halaby, took home the Creative Award.
The complete list of winners:
- Two books were presented with the Academic Award. Bjorn Brenner was honoured for his work “Gaza Under Hamas: From Islamic Democracy to Islamist Governance” and Laila Parsons for “The Commander: Fawzi Al-Qawuqji and the Fight for Arab Independence 1914-1948”.
- Ella Shohat was presented the Memoir Award for her book “On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and other Displacements”, while Samia Halaby took home the Creative Award for “Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre”.
- The Lifetime Achievement Award, a prize that honours the author’s many contributions to literature on Palestine, was presented to Professor Ilan Pappe who also wrote one of the nominated books on this year’s shortlist “The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories”.
To find out more on the three female Palestinian authors:
Samia A. Halaby (1936) is a Palestinian artist and scholar who lives and works in New York. Born in Jerusalem in 1936 during the British Mandate, she and her family were expelled from their home in the port city of Yafa in 1948. Today she is recognized as one of the Arab world's leading contemporary painters and she has exhibited throughout the US, Europe, Asia, and South America. "The Kafr Qasem Drawings," is an ongoing series that began in 1999 after interviewing survivors and relatives of the victims of the 1956 massacre that occurred in the Palestinian village of Kafr Qasem.
Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre
Ahlam Bisharat (1975) was born in the small town of Tamoon in the Northern Valley of Palestine. She now lives between Tamoon and Ramallah. She holds a Master's degree in Palestinian Literature from Najah University in Nablus. Ahlam published her first book of short stories in 2005. Ahlam Bisharat has worked as an editor of a magazine section dedicated to youth issues and has taught creative writing. She has also written children’s series for TV and radio. She has been on writers’ residencies in Belgium and in Paris, France.
Ibtisam Barakat (1963) is an Award-winning, Palestinian-American author, poet, translator, artist and educator. Ibtisam Barakat was born in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem, and grew up in Ramallah, Palestine. She came to the US for an internship at The Nation magazine in New York City. She holds two Masters Degrees, and has taught Language Ethics at Stephens College. She authors in both English and Arabic. Her work centers on healing social injustices, especially in the lives of young people. Her writings exist in numerous translations.
Balcony on the moon, Coming of Age in Palestine
Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com