Category: Awards

Iran’s Association of Islamic Revolution Publishers’ Seyyed Ali Andarzgu Literary Awards seeks to keep history in line with state policy

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The Seyyed Ali Andarzgu Literary Awards were launched this week by Iran’s Association of Islamic Revolution Publishers, with the objective to honour books about the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Shah and instated an Islamic Republic. Named after Seyyed Ali Andarzgu, a revolutionary who was killed by the SAVAK intelligence services in 1978 the Read More …

A commercial fiction prize worth AU$ 10k launched by HarperCollins and Australian Society of Authors

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The Australian Society of Authors and the HQ imprint of HarperCollins Australia have launched a new commercial fiction award for Australian and New Zealand authors. Open to previously unpublished titles, the first prize is a book contract with HQ and an advance of AU$ 10,000, while second prize will be a 20 hour website consultation Read More …

Romania’s Eurocon nominations offers an insight into Romania’s vibrant sci-fi scene

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Eurocon, the convention of the European Science Fiction Society, is being held in Belfast, Northern Ireland this year, from August 22-25, and the Romania sci-fi journal Helion has just published the Romanian nominations. The nominations come from the Romanian Association of Science Fiction Authors and Clubs, which organises the National Science Fiction Conventions. The European Read More …

Malta Book Festival programme will be delivered to every household in Malta and Gozo

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Malta’s National Book Council has announced that the 2019 Malta Book Festival will take place 6-10 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. With a population of just 430,000 it’s not a major logistical challenge but still a remarkable gesture of support for books and reading that the Festival programme will be published in Read More …

A dystopian short story wins the 2019 Caine Prize

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Nigerian-American author Lesley Nneka Arimah has won the 20th edition of the Caine Prize for African Writing with a stunning post-apocalyptic short story, Skinned. The Caine Prize, launched in 2000, has a $10,000 award and is Arimah’s third time shortlisted, and first time to win. Arimah has also won the Commonwealth Short Story prize (2015), Read More …

Submissions opened for the Sharjah International Book Fair Awards. Deadline September 1

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With Sharjah the World Book Capital this year (check out this interview with Bodour Al Qasimi to find out how that came to be) the Sharjah International Book Fair promises to be even more of a extravaganza than usual. One of the highlights will be the Sharjah International Book Awards. The deadline for submissions is Read More …

Iceland’s Bókmenntahátíð í Reykjavík kicks off next week with the inaugural Halldór Laxness Award among many attractions

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If it’s 2019, it must be time for the bi-annual Bókmenntahátíð í Reykjavík which this year has a spring date for the first time.  That will be April 24-27 for those who fancy a spring break in Iceland. Don’t worry if you flunked Icelandic at school. Bókmenntahátíð í Reykjavík is of course the Reykjavík International Read More …

Dubai’s Booklava wins The Bookseller’s AudioBook Publisher of the Year Award

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Unsurprisingly, audiobooks have been a hot topic at the London Book Fair, which finishes today, but it wasn’t the usual suspects, Audible and Storytel, that grabbed the headlines. The Bookseller’s Audiobook producer of the Year Award went to an audio outfit in the United Arab Emirates, which may come as a surprise to those who Read More …

At Zee Jaipur Lit Fest French Ambassador awards Romain Rolland Prize for translation from French to Indian local languages

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In our Anglophone-centric  publishing world it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture of the Global New Renaissance unfolding, and to build a faux impression that the world of translations is all about translating English to other languages and other languages to English. But important as English is on the global publishing stage, it Read More …

Turkey-based Armenian publisher Aras Publishing takes Publishing House of the Year award

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Turkey’s Aras Publishing this week received the coveted Publishing House of the Year Award from Dünya Books Magazine for its role as a window to Armenian literature. Explains Massispost, Aras Publishing was established in 1993 in Istanbul. It adopted a publishing policy which made it called “the window to Armenian literature” soon. With its books Read More …

FIL Guadalajara opens submissions for the annual Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Literature Prize for women writing in Spanish

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The US $10,000 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize for Literature will be awarded in Mexico on 4 December this year, and authors and publishers have until April 30 to get their submissions in. The award, launched in 1993 and funded by the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, is for books originally published Read More …

Joyce Carol Oates To Get Jerusalem Prize at Israel’s Mishkenot Sha’ananim International Writers Festival

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The Jerusalem International Book Forum (formerly the Jerusalem International Book Fair) will run 12-15 May this year, and for the first time will run concurrent with the International Writers Festival of Mishkenot Sha’ananim. Founded in 1963, the then Jerusalem International Book Fair has long been the Israeli publishing industry’s public face, and the forum where the Read More …

Amazon’s Audible says self-published ebooks and paperbacks are not evidence that an author has been published

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With the announcement in December that Amazon-owned Audible was sponsoring the prestigious Sunday Times Short Story Award came the prospect that the winners would not just earn some extra cash but would have their entries published as an audiobook that would reach a still wider audience. Which all sounds great. The Sunday Times Short Story Read More …

Accra International Book Festival 2019 dates announced. And the hunt is on for the 27 best books by Ghanaian authors

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Ghana’s inaugural Accra Book Festival last Year (not to be confused with the Ghana International Book Fair) was an unqualified success last year, and plans for the 2019 edition are underway. The 2nd Accra Book Festival will be formally launched on August 10 and the event itself will run for four days over October 24-27. Read More …

Ghana’s Accra International Book Festival announces 2018 Awards shortlist

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The Accra International Book Festival has announced its shortlist for two awards today: the 2018 First Book Award and the 2018 Independent Writers Award, with five female contenders and just one male making the finals. Unusually for an Africa-based award the prize is open to submissions from authors of any nationality, although submissions must be Read More …

Move over, Michelle Obama. Uganda’s First Lady is a bestselling author too

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Okay, Janet Museveni’s book My Life’s Journey may not have made quite the splash that Michelle Obama’s Becoming has made, but then, being the wife of the President of Uganda doesn’t come with quite the high profile that comes with being the wife of the former President of the United States. But that didn’t stop Read More …

In case you missed it – The past week on TNPS

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The past seven days on TNPS – here’s what you missed.   Dubai Audio Library “the largest Arabic audio library in the world” Dubai Audio Library “the largest Arabic audio library in the world” Self-published comic book to become Netflix series – Again Self-published comic book to become Netflix series – Again Saudi Arabia’s 4th Read More …

2019 Sheikh Zayed Book Award longlist lines up 13 titles for the prestigious Arab literature prize

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With contenders from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Syria, Yemen and Norway, the 2019 Sheikh Zayed Book Award long list for the Literature category is announced, with ten novels, two poetry collections and a memoir forming the line-up. Here’s the longlist:   Novel: Esmy Fatima (My Name is Fatima) by Egyptian writer Amro Al Adly (2017) Read More …

As Sharjah takes centre-stage, Kuwait’s Almultaqa Prize Announces 5-book Pan-Arab Shortlist for 2018

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With the Sharjah International Book Fair underway in the United Arab Emirates you could be forgiven for thinking there was only one bookish event happening in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) arena right now. The just finished Khartoum International Book Fair, for example, passed almost completely unnoticed in Sudan, while the still on-going Algiers Read More …

Nigerian student writer wins trip to Sharjah International Book fair. They never had prizes like that when I was a kid!

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Back in the last century when I was a kid I won my fair share of writing prizes for my back-then handwritten essays and stories. The prizes were much appreciated – a book token, a cinema ticket, etc – but not quite in the same class as the trophy for winning Nigeria’s 2018 Channels Book Read More …