23 November 2018
The Culture and Arts Programme of the A. M. Qattan Foundation published three new books by young writers, whose literary works won the Young Writer of the Year Award 2017 (YWYA 17), or were commended by the YWYA 17 jury. The books were published in collaboration with the Dar Al-Ahlia for Publishing and Distribution, Jordan.
Publications included The Funeral of a Juggler, a collection of poems by Anis Ghuneimah (Gaza) and winner of the YWYA 17 for the poetry category. Snoring, a poetry collection by Razan Bannourah (Beit Sahur), was highly appreciated and recommended for publication by the YWYA 17 jury. Wings, a novel by Ru’a al-Shish (Bethlehem) was also recommend for publication by the jury.
Born in Gaza in 1992, Ghuneimah is engaged in the support of Arabic content on the internet. He is a member of Youth for Knowledge (Utopia). Ghuneimah writes and publishes poetry in local and Arab literary and cultural magazines. Commenting on The Funeral of a Juggler, the YWYA 17 jury stated that Ghuneimah’s collection “displays a mature and powerful poetic discourse, amazing metaphors and images, and poetic momentum that flows in smooth texts about cruelty and sadness. These are presented through poetics, which is distinguished by subjectivity, experimentation, creativity, and justified subjective sadness that possesses the power to open a window to what human and public is.”
Bannourah is a lawyer from Beit Sahur. In 2015, she obtained a BA in Law from the Palestine Ahliya University. She received other training certificates in legal, international, community and humanitarian fields. Bannourah also published many poems and stories in local and Arab newspapers and magazines, both in print and online.
In its statement on Bannourah’s collection Snoring, the YWYA 17 jury said: “This collection unveils a tremendous capability of discovering poetry in everything, even in that which seems to resist it. It involves high poetics that deconstructs and reconstructs everything in wonderful poems, which effectively combine quiet meditation and insurgence. In a proper, transparent and ascetic language, sensitivity drives the reader through the commonplace to surprising consequences.”
Al-Shish is a resident of the Bethlehem city. She was born in 1992 to a refugee family that had been displaced from the Beit Attab village, Jerusalem, in 1948. In 2015, she obtained a BA degree in Business Administration from the Palestine Ahliya University. Her novel, Wings, was commended by the YWYA 17 jury as a work that is “grounded in a fertile, fantastic and amazing fictionalisation. It addresses the dichotomy of good and evil in a style that is affluent, open to the human, and passing through the times and places. The novel adopts three narrative tracks, which at first appear as if dispersed, but are soon entwined together through a very clever and confident management. With this entwinement, enchanting and convincing tragic characters are revealed, presenting a profound and enlivening dialogue.”
Book launches will be organised soon. These three new books bring the total publications of the Culture and Arts Programme to six in 2018. The new releases are part of the YWYA 17 publications. Two more books will be released in the near future.