Five young budding writers in UAE are on their way to becoming published authors after winning this year’s Montegrappa Writing Prize.
As part of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, Italian pen makers Montegrappa announced the winners of their annual contest in which residents over the age of 21 can submit a 400-word synopsis and the first 2,000 words of a fiction manuscript.
The unpublished writers who won this year were Rebekah Heaney (What We Learnt at Number 9), Musfira Shaffi (Swiped Away), Jennifer Bromham (Pond), Farzeen Noorie Ashik (Rainbow Dorm Diaries) and Helga Jensen-Fordewere (Temptation at Tiffany's). They were presented with their prizes by judge and UK literary agent Luigi Bonomi and previous winners Lucy Strange, author of The Secret of Nightingale Wood (published by Chicken House), Charlotte Butterfield, who wrote Me, You and Tiramisu (published by Harper Impulse) and Giuseppe Aquila, chief executive of Montegrappa Italia.
The first-place winner, Heaney, received a Limited Edition Montegrappa Pen from the Ernest Hemingway Collection, from John Hemingway, author of Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir, who is Hemingway's grandson.
Heaney will also be flown to London by Emirates Airline, with accommodation supplied by InterContinental Hotels, to discuss her submission with Bonomi. The runners-up received a Montegrappa Limited Edition Pen and copies of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.
“I am thrilled that over the course of so many years, the Writing Prize has gained quite a high profile and as result, it has upped the competitive nature of the entries,” said Bonomi.
“We have tapped into a giant fount of creative talent here in the UAE and reading the submissions is a real joy. Choosing the eventual winners this year has been a tough ask. All the entrants should be proud of their achievement, irrespective of the final result.”
• The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature continues until March 11. Visit www.emirateslitfest.com
aahmed@thenational.ae
