2017

Tamer Said

"Tamer Said has over thirteen years of experience in the UAE publishing industry. He started out at Jerboa books, a Dubai based publisher, before becoming a Sales Manager at Kitab, organizers of the Abu Dhabi international book fair.

In 2010, he was appointed as the planning and development manager for the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) and the UAE board on books for young people (UAEBBY). He supervised several initiatives to develop the publishing industry in the UAE and was involved in managing the Etisalat award for Arabic children’s literature.

During his current role as a Managing Director at Kalimat Group, he contributed in the expansion of the group’s activities to include under its umbrella a number of competent companies which are: Kalimat, Horouf, Rewayat, Comics and Maktaba, in addition to several partnerships with international publishers.

Dr. Yasmine Motawy

Yasmine Motawy teaches Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo and is a translator, scholar, editor, and writing coach in the area of children's literature. Her doctoral dissertation at Cairo University was a comparative critical discourse analysis titled ‘Ideology in Selected British and Egyptian Children’s Literature’. Her other scholarly interests include informal education, service learning, life narratives, and speculative fiction.

Motawy has been actively involved in the promotion of reading in Egypt and the revival of the Egyptian section of IBBY in 2011. She served on the 2016 and 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Intelaq M. Al

Intelaq M. Ali has been drawing for children and adolescents for 33 years. She has produced 48 children's books, 27 adult books, edited 14 Iraqi and Arab children's magazines. In addition to its participation in the production of 32 animation films, which won nine awards from international festivals and competitions, four of them in Japan.

Many lectures have been presented at Arab and international conferences, festivals and exhibitions, including the IBBY regional conference for Central Asia and North Africa, held in Sharjah in 2013, the UNESCO Workshop for Arab Children's Books’ Authors and Illustrators in Lebanon in 2004. She was selected as a jury member for the Sharjah Children's Book Award and the Etisalat Award for Arabic Children's Literature in 2012.

In the year 2012, “Ibn Battuta” book was nominated by IBBY Sweden for ""Excellence in Graphics"", and one year earlier, her book ""So the colors change"" was selected in the annual publication of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany.

Nahla Ghandour

Nahla Ghandour has extensive experience in the rehabilitation of children and the treatment of people with special needs. She worked in many institutions and associations specialized in this field, including the Lebanese Association for Occupational Therapy and the Advisory Committee ""Intervention with Children of Special Needs"" at the Institute for Women Studies in the Arab World (Currently Lebanese American University). Currently she is the director of the Children's Rehabilitation Centre at the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Foundation in Beirut.

During her career, she has published several children's books that focus specifically on people with special needs, most notably the book ""She, They, Them"" winner of the 2010 Anna Lindh Children's Literature Prize, and ""The Giant"" by Tamer Institute, Palestine. In addition to the books ""Cotton Cloud"", ""My friend disappeared"", and ""Silence"" by Kalimat group for publication in the UAE in 2016.

Nahla Ghandour holds several university degrees in computer science, education and mental health. She has established a library in the field of education and rehabilitation for children with disabilities. In addition, she was nominated in 2013 for the Takreem Award for Nonprofit Non-Profit category and the World Social Leadership Award from Ashoka Arab World in 2014.

Mertxe Paris Leza

Degree in Humanities and Arabic Studies from University of Barcelona. She began her career in publishing, working first in different publishing houses from Spain and United of Kingdom. Later she founded Mosaics Llibres, her own publishing house specialized in Children’s and Youth literature. Nowadays, she is Editor in Chief at Mosaics Llibres.

She is also coordinator and teacher of Master Degree of Arabic and Islamic Studies of the University of Barcelona. The Mosaics Llibres team work to create outstanding stories for children and to be part of a global community of publishers from around the world. They believe in the power of the literature to build bridges between different cultures and languages. For  that,  Mosaics  Llibres  is  the  first  publishing  house  to  translate  into  Catalan  language an award-­‐winning book like Nour Runs Away from the Story (Etisalat Award, 2015).