AND THE WINNERS ARE

After weeks of speculation and, one assumes, much lobbying, the Supreme Council for Culture (SCC) has finally announced the winners of this year's state awards.

With a total of LE1.15 million in prize money being awarded, there is a lot to compete over. In past years, harsh criticism was directed at the state for granting its awards to ministers and senior public officials. To the SCC's credit, that seems to have been avoided this year to a large extent, as most prizes went to university professors and academics.

The most prestigious (and at LE100,000, also the most rewarding) of the prizes are the Mubarak awards. This year the Mubarak awards went to musicologist Samha El-Khouli for arts, and dean of the Arabic Language Academy critic Shawqi Deif for literature. Deif has repeatedly been nominated for state awards in past years. Meanwhile, the Mubarak award for social sciences was withheld. Three names had been short listed for the this year's prize: Ahmed Fathi Sorour, speaker of parliament; Ibrahim Nafie, editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of Al-Ahram and Yunan Labib Rizk, professor of modern history at Ain Shams University.

The state merit awards for arts went to composer Kamal El- Tawil, scriptwriter Mahfouz Abdel-Rahman, and artist Saleh Mohamed Reda. In literature, the winners were Sabri Mohamed Hassan Moussa, Abdel-Aziz Hammouda and Soliman Fayyad. Finally, in social sciences, the merit awards went to Zebeida Atta, Salaheddin Fawzi, Mahmoud Ali Ouda and Mustafa El-Fiki, head of parliament's foreign affairs committee.

The state excellence awards for arts went to composer Rageh Dawoud and scriptwriter Wahid Hamed. The literature awards went to Nehad Selaiha, dean of the Theatre Institute and Al-Ahram Weekly's drama critic, and novelist Abdel-Aal El- Hamamsi. The social sciences prizes went to Amira Helmi Mattar, Mohamed Shafiq Zaki, and Shaker Abdel-Hamid Soliman.

The state incentive awards for arts went to Nashaat Ahmed Hassan for installations, Diaaeddin Mohamed Hanafi for architectural details, and Khaled Hammad for the soundtrack to the short film Lili . The incentive awards for literature went to Ahmed Ibrahim Hamed Abu Khaniga for his novel Nag' Al-Sil'awwa (Town of the Sil'awwa), Azza Awad Badr for her travel book Umm Al-Dunya, (Mother of the World), Samir Farrag for his diwan of classical poetry Al-Alwan min Rahim Al-Ghadab (Colors from Anger's Womb), Mohamed Ahmed El-Ghaiti for his book of colloquial poetry Al- Naqsh ala Al-Mayya, (Scribbling on Water) Nagui Eweiss Rashwan for his study in literary criticism Al-Wa'yy Al-Hadari wa Asatir Al- Tasawwur (Civilisational Awareness and Legendary Visions) and Mahmoud Khalil for his study on the discourse of the press.

The incentive awards for social science went to Yasser Qansul for his book Al-Libraliyya: Ishkalliyyat Al-Mafhum (Liberalism: Problematics of the Concept), Ayman Refaat El- Mahgoub for his book Al-Maliyya Al-'Amma, (Public Finance) Ashraf Abdel-Razeq for his book on human cloning, as well as Abdel-Basit Mohamed, Hamdi Ali Amer, and Ashraf Shamseddin Hassan.

A date has yet to be set for the awards ceremony. In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether the awards will spur their traditional yearly dose of objection and criticism.

C a p t i o n :
Shawqi Deif

Samha El-Khouli

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 26 June - 2 July 2003 (Issue No. 644)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/644/eg4.htm