Mohammed Ibrahim Al Qasir, Director of the Cultural Affairs Department at the Sharjah Department of Culture and Secretary-General of the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity (first edition), announced the winners of the 29th edition of the award, which is held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, and organised by the Cultural Affairs Department.

The 18 winners represent various Arab countries and were recognised across the award's six literary fields: poetry, novel, short story, playwriting, children's literature, and literary criticism.

Mohammed Al Qasir said, “With each new edition, the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity reaffirms its creative essence in seeking out every emerging talent taking their first steps in the world of Arabic literature. It embodies the vision of His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, who laid the foundations for this pioneering award, which targets young creators. It is an exceptional cultural vision centred on discovering the first literary works of writers from across the Arab world, thus giving the award a distinct cultural identity and character, serving as a celebratory space and an incubator for creative individuals in six vital and diverse literary fields.”

Al Qasir added, "Throughout its successive cycles, the prize has contributed to fostering a rich and diverse creative environment, enriching the Arabic literary landscape with hundreds of publications in poetry, novels, short stories, criticism, and plays. It is worth noting that the prize witnesses broad participation in each cycle; this cycle alone attracted over 500 literary works from Arab countries, in addition to submissions from foreign countries by Arabic-speaking writers. This demonstrates the prize's significance to writers and underscores its commitment to opening its doors each cycle to discover new talents."

Al Qasir noted that the current session received 164 submissions from Egypt, 84 from Syria, 52 from Iraq, 49 from Algeria, 37 from Morocco, 37 from Yemen, 28 from Sudan, 24 from Jordan, 11 from Tunisia, 9 from Mauritania, 8 from Oman, 5 from Saudi Arabia, 4 from the UAE, 4 from Lebanon, and 1 from Somalia. He also mentioned that Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Mali, Chad, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea, Eritrea, and Canada each submitted one literary work. He emphasised that the award's global reach and its importance to writers from around the world underscore its international scope.

The Secretary-General of the Prize also noted that the submitted texts were distributed across the fields of poetry (118 entries), short stories (153 entries), novels (130 entries), plays (79 entries), children's literature (45 entries), with this cycle dedicated to poetry collections aimed at children aged 8-11, and literary criticism (25 entries), with this cycle dedicated to studying the manifestations of experimentation in the contemporary short story.

Mohammed Al-Qasir announced the names of the winners, stating that following the completion of the sorting and judging procedures and the deliberations of the judging committee, the Prize Secretariat approved the results, which saw Ahmed Salama Selim Abed (Egypt) win first place in the poetry category for Another Name for Things, followed by Ahmed Imam Mahmoud Bayoumi (Egypt) for No Knocking Behind the Door and Saddam Issa Bouaziz (Algeria) for I Move the Stones of Silence; in the short story category, first place went to Ahmed Adel Mohammed Nasser Al-Salmi (Yemen) for The Hidden Pulse of the Mountain, second to Maha Abdulkarim Abdul Badrani (Iraq) for The Museum of Shadows and Threads, and third to Badr Asouka (Morocco) for The Biography of Drowning; in the novel category, Mai Al-Mawlidi Al-Arabi Dhou (Tunisia) claimed first place for The Resurrection of Taniri, followed by Ahmed Mohammed Hamshari (Syria) for Rotation and Yassin Ben Mohammed Chenini (Tunisia) for The Dust; the theatre category was led by Zubaida Hassan Raja (Syria) for The Queue, with Ibrahim Issa Muhammad Ali (Yemen) second for The City of Ghosts and Sumaya Bounab (Algeria) third for Aslith, the Bride of the Rain; in children’s literature, Hussein Ni’ma Hussein (Iraq) won first place for The Book of Riddles, followed by Muhammad Ismail Abdullah Suwailim (Egypt) for A Bird Embracing Its Brother and Omar Al-Raji (Morocco) for The Melody of Spring; while in the criticism category, first place was awarded to Ahmed Muhammad Morsi Abdullah (Egypt) for Manifestations of Aesthetic Experimentation in the Contemporary Short Story: Transformations of Form and Vision, second to Sundus Qasim Abdullah Al-Azzawi (Iraq) for Deconstructing the Traditional Narrative Structure: Experimentation in Shaping Time and the Narrator in the Contemporary Short Story, and third to Nourhan Sayed Hassan Sayed (Egypt) for The Aesthetics of Experimentation in the Short Story: From Tradition to Digitalisation.

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