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AFAC
from the cover of "Ali Douagi: The pursuit of happiness" by Dhia Bousselmi
Creative and Critical Writings Grants 2024 Announced
14 / 8 / 2024

Seventeen projects have been selected to receive support through the Creative and Critical Writings (CCW) program for 2024.

The CCW 2024 jury committee — composed of Syrian author and historian Farouk Mardam-Bey, Libyan physician and author Ghazi Gheblawi, and Egyptian novelist and journalist Mansoura Ez-Eldin — convened to review the applications and make the final selection. At the end of their meeting, the jurors issued the following statement, summarizing their impressions:

    The 2024 Creative and Critical Writing jury extends heartfelt gratitude to all participants who submitted their projects for grant consideration. We thoroughly enjoyed reviewing the diverse, rich, and innovative submissions. The high quality of these works and the wide array of Arab countries represented by the writers reflect the flourishing of Arabic short stories, with particularly exceptional contributions from Sudan in this category. Additionally, projects in film, music, and theater studies stood out, though we observed a notable lack of works in visual art criticism.

    While critical projects were fewer than creative ones, they highlighted the challenges within the Arab publishing market, with many addressing the issue of publishing costs. We also hope to see more interest in comics in future submissions.

    Selecting the winning projects was not an easy task. It involved careful reading of each submission, detailed comparisons, and long hours of discussions among jury members to finalize the list. Our criteria included innovation and artistic quality, the project's potential to address gaps in the Arab cultural scene, a reasonable and proportional budget, the quality and relevance of supporting materials and attention to cultural diversity and language accuracy.

    Based on our observations, we would like to offer the following recommendations for future participants: focus on language accuracy and quality; present a well-structured budget, avoiding exaggeration and including only items directly relevant to the project; adhere to methodological precision when preparing the application; avoid clichés or overly rhetorical expressions; and ensure that projects align with the grant’s focus, as some submissions leaned more toward broader humanities and social sciences than creativity and culture.

    In conclusion, we are delighted by the creative and intellectual richness of the submissions and impressed by the exceptional contributions in Arabic from non-Arab writers. We wish all the best to this year’s grantees.
The 17 selected projects, from Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen, come in a range of forms: critical books, short stories, children’s books, poetry, graphic novels, and one platform.

The projects selected by the jurors are