Khartoum — Sudanese novelist Atef Alhaj Saeed has won the first prize in the Tawfiq Bakkar Award for Arabic Novel 2021.
Organizers of the Tunisia – based Award announced last Saturday that Saeed has won the prize for his novel al nawrass yahjuruhu al sirb (Sea Gull Deserted by the Flock) out of 106 novels contending for this edition of the Award.
The Award was launched in Tunisia in 2018 by the cultural society Alag with support from the Tunisian Ministry of Culture in honor of literary critic, Arabic language University Professor Tawfiq Bakkar (1927-2017).
The late Bakkar was also one of the founders of the University of Tunisia and is attributed to have inspired and helped many Tunisian writers, intellectuals, novelists and publishers.
The Award is directed to novelists from the Arab World who are obliged to present manuscripts of their unpublished works. The Award supervisors then take the responsibility of publishing the winning novels.
Atef Alhaj Saeed is a Sudanese novelist, writer, translator and university Professor with a PhD in applied linguistics.
He has won before two prestigious awards; Tayeb Saleh Award for Novels in 2016 for his work “Asif Ya Bahr”.
His novel Rabee’ Wa Shita’a (Spring and Winter) won the Abiidi Publishing House Award for Arabic Novel (2019).
His novels offer narrative approaches about the topics of immigration and asylum, the situation of migrants in the host countries, and the issues of disruption of national, religious, identity, and cultural conflict.
His other works include an academic book titled: “The Arabic Language for Speakers of Other Languages in the Light of the Common European Framework of Reference” in association with Mohamed Daoud Mohamed, 2016, and “Icon of the Sudanese novel”; a book prepared in 2018 about the experience of the Sudanese novelist Abdul Aziz Baraka Sakin.
The second prize winner in Tawfiq Bakar Award was Writer Abbas Suleiman from Tunisia.
Iraqi Novelist Nae’em Abd Muhalhal has won the third prize.
The fourth prize has gone to the Yemeni Writer Mohammad Almaghrabi while the fifth and last prize was won by Egyptian Novelist Mohammad Abbas Ali Da’ood.