NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and Comparative Literature Philip Kennedy has been announced as the winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award’s ‘Arab Culture in Other Languages’ category for his book Recognition in the Arabic Narrative Tradition (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).
Now in its 13th edition, the annual Sheikh Zayed Book Award is presented to outstanding writers, intellectuals, and publishers, as well as emerging talents whose writing and translation in the humanities field enriches Arab intellectual, cultural, literary, and social life.
Originally from the UK, Kennedy is the author of The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition (1997), Recognition in the Arabic Narrative Tradition (2016), and a number of other studies about Arabic Literature. He is also the Vice Provost for public programming at the NYUAD Institute and the General Editor of the Library of Arabic Literature.
Commenting on the Award, Kennedy said: “Having spent a good few years working on this book, I’m thrilled it has managed to capture some attention, rather than sitting silently on the research library bookshelf. We all want the work we have invested time in to make some difference in the perception of a subject, however small, and I’m delighted my own particular obsession with medieval Arabic literature has been deemed worth sharing with the wider world this spring. This is not something I take for granted, at all. Needless to say, I feel honored, humbled, grateful, and proud, especially to be associated through this award with Sheikh Zayed, whose formidable qualities and unique achievements I have always admired, ever since I first visited the UAE as a student in 1982.”
