The 8th Jalal Literary Prize announced winners in four different categories of the competition at a ceremony at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on Saturday.
Nasim Marashi’s ‘Fall is the Last Season of the Year’ and ‘The Lute Girl’ by Shahriyar Abbasi won the joint award for the best novel, IRNA reported.
The two novels were among the few works that the jury deemed deserving to receive the cash prize. Other books were just appreciated for their innovation and creativity.
Aimed at promoting the national-religious language and literature of Iran, the prize is named after the prominent Iranian writer and thinker Jalal Al-e-Ahmad (1923-1969).
In the short story section, Mehdi Assadzadeh’s ‘Will Khazaneh Kids Be Redeemed?’ and ‘Guardian of the Darkness’, a collection by Majid Qeysari, received the jury’s admiration.
Ali Abbasi’s ‘Applied Narratology’ and Abolfazl Horri’s ‘Fanciful Pen’ were hailed in the critic section.
The documentary section’s top award went to ‘Water Will Never Die’ by Hamid Hessam and ‘You Will Die in Cairo’ by Hamdi-Reza Sadr, a popular TV pundit in arts and soccer.
Int’l Event
Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati pointed out that the prize has the capacity to become an international event and said, “Those involved in organizing the program should provide the grounds to extend it to the Persian-speaking countries. This can help the Persian language and fiction prosper in the world.”
“Great religious and historical books like the Holy Qur’an contain narrations and stories; in fact, fiction has the most influence on readers,” the minister noted.
Asserting that Al-e-Ahmad was concerned about humanity, Jannati said, “His literature was unique and interesting and his mental ability was beyond his time. Using his specific style, he provided a place for authors among the public.”
Established in 2007, the annual event is considered Iran’s most lucrative literary award as the cash prize is $30,000.
Books published a year before the award event, are considered by the judges.
