In a well-attended literary and music event at the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah, the A. M. Qattan Foundation (AMQF) announced results of the Young Writer of the Year Award (YWYA) 2017. The awards ceremony fearture reading for excerpts from all shortlisted literary works by their writers in addition to the participation of pianist Bishara Haroni.
In the short story category, the jury decided to grant the Young Writer of the Year Award 2017 (YWYA 17) to Ahmed Husam Jaber (Kafr Ra’i, Jenin) for his collection Mr. Blue in the Cinema. The award comprised US$ 4,000 and publication of the short story collection.
Whereas the jury decided to withhold the YWYA 17 for the novel category, it commended and granted a US$ 1,000 incentive award for the following novel manuscripts; A Lot of Nonsense by Du’a Mahmoud Ibrahim (Anata town, Jerusalem); Cliché and Dystopia by Hakeem Basem Khater (Bizzariya, Nablus); Wings by Ru’a Mohammed al-Sheish (Bethlehem); and The Arab Red Army by Fakhri Basem Taha (Ramallah).
In the poetry category, the jury decided to award the YWYA 17 to Anis Raed Ghuneimah (Gaza) for his collection The Funeral of a Juggler. In addition to publishing the collection of poems, the award was in the amount of US$ 4,000.