The Sheikh Zayed Book Award to announce winners despite cancelled ceremony

The literary event is of one many cancelled in the wake of the Coronavirus

Abu Dhabi International Book Fair is one of many festivals cancelled as health precaution against the Coronavirus. Pawan Singh / The National

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award has chosen this year’s winning authors, despite the prize giving ceremony not going ahead.

Slated to run in April as part of the already cancelled Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, the event will not go ahead as a health precaution against the coronavirus.

However, the literary competition will still announce its winners in the coming weeks. A total of 1,900 nominations from 49 countries (22 Arab and 27 foreign countries) were submitted for the 14th Sheikh Zayed Book Award across its nine categories. The two categories with the highest number of nominations were Young Author (498 nominations) followed by Literature (438 nominations).

The news follows a similar move by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, which cancelled its 2020 awards ceremony, and was due to take place in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, April 14. With all six shortlisted works already announced, the awards have yet to release further details on the prize giving process.

The coronavirus has impacted the international publishing industry, with a string of prestigious events such as the London Book Fair, Bologna's Children Book Fair and the LA Art Book Fair all cancelled.

However, one of the region's biggest literary meet ups, the Sharjah International Book Fair, remains on the calendar and is scheduled to to run from Wednesday, November 4 to Saturday November 14.