King Abdullah Translation Award to be announced today
Published: Mar 19, 2010 23:28 Updated: Mar 19, 2010 23:28
RIYADH: The winners of the third King Abdullah International Prize for Translation are to be announced on Saturday at the King Abdul Aziz Public Library in Riyadh.
The prize’s board of trustees, chaired by Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah, will hold a special session to decide the winner.
The prince, who is also a board member for the library, acts as a private adviser to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
Deputy general supervisor of the library, Dr. Abdulkarim Al-Zaid, told Arab News that the owners of four translations, along with an institution that has made a remarkable contribution in the field, will be honored.
“They were selected from 118 nominated works in many languages from 23 Arab and foreign countries after a careful, lengthy examination that lasted for several months. A similar process was used to select the winning institution,” he said.
“SR2 million will be distributed among the individual winners, while another SR500,000 will be given to the winning institution.”
Al-Zaid said that the award aims to embody King Abdullah’s vision of translation as a basis for cultural dialogue and knowledge-sharing among nations.
He added that major universities and cultural institutions placed adverts in newspapers inviting applications for the prize six months in advance.
Al-Zaid revealed that King Abdul Aziz Library is currently trying to obtain the right to reprint the works that have previously won the prize.
“Once we obtain the rights, we will print and distribute these works to students, universities and cultural institutions, so they can benefit,” he said.

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