2020

Professor Abderrahmane Buali

Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the College of Arts and Humanities. He is also a visiting professor at several universities.

Prof. Buali holds several Arab awards in Arabic literature, and he was a jury member in different Arab awards too.

Prof. Buali has many published works, including collection of poems, original works and translated works in criticism, literature, semiotics, poetry, Arabic novel and many other literary fields, researches and studies.

Ahmed Al Ali

Editor-in-chief of "Rewyat" in Sharjah. He holds a master's degree in publishing. He is interested in poetry and translation.

Noura Al Noman

With a Bachelor in English Literature (1986) and a Masters in Translation Studies (2004), Noura Al Noman had studied language for many years; but never expected to become a writer, let alone an author of books for Arab children. In 2010, she published her first two picture books for toddlers. “Cotton the Kitten” and “Kiwi the Hedgehog” were published by Kalimat in Arabic, and aimed to contrast how children deal with pets and wild animals. Noting the huge deficit in books for young Arabs (aged 15+), she wrote her first novel, “Ajwan”, one of a handful of science fiction novels in the Arab world, published by Nahdet Misr (Egypt). Noura believes that Arab youth are hungry for fiction which can excite them enough to read in Arabic. Ajwan won the Etisalat Children Literature Award, as Best Young Adult Novel, 2013. Noura Also won the Arab Woman Award in the Literature category, presented by the ITP Group. Book two of Ajwan “Mandan” was launched at the Cairo Book Fair, January 2014. Book 3 “Saydonia” was published in November 2016. Currently she is working on book 4 the last of the series.

Salwa Shakhshir

Salwa Shakhshir is the managing director of Al Salwa Publishers, an award-winning boutique publishing house that specializes in creating original Arabic content for children and young adults.

Salwa took over a small home-run family business and turned it into an award-winning publishing house that implements state of the art book publishing procedures and processes. She has trained and empowered a young team of motivated individuals with attention to detail and a united goal.

Her efforts have given Al Salwa’s boutique publishing house the ability to present quality content, creative design and productions. She believes in the strength of Arabic talent be it content, design or creativity.

Many of Al Salwa’s titles have won awards and were translated into over 10 foreign languages. Salwa holds a BA in Mass Communication from the Lebanese American University in Beirut.

Sinan Hallak

Sinan Hallak is a Lebanese illustrator for children’s books, a graphic designer and a university instructor. Holder of a Master’s degree in Illustration from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA). His drawings got published for the first time in 2009 and his work won several awards and honorable mentions

Sinan’s work has been published by local, regional and multinational publishing houses; one of his latest books entitled “Perfectly different” has been published by Penguin Random House. Besides his illustration work, Sinan has designed many picture books, young adults’ and adults’ books.

Due to his interest in children’s art, he has lately held a series of workshops, through which silent books and short animations were produced, all fully illustrated by children.