Authors With Dearborn Ties Among Arab American Book Award Winners

The winning titles of the 2012 Arab American Book Award, presented by the Arab American National Museum, have been announced.

Among the winners is a book by three scholars with ties to Dearborn. They include Rabab Abdulhadi, director of the Center for Arab American Studies at the ; Evelyn Alsultany, guest curator of the AANM's online exhibit, Reclaiming Identity: Dismantling Arab Stereotypes; and Nadine Naber, a professor at UM-Ann Arbor who has previously organized conferences at the museum.

Together, the women edited Arab & Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, & Belonging, the winner of this year's Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award.

All Arab American Book Award winners will be honored at a ceremony on Sept. 29 at the in Dearborn. Further details on the invitation-only event will be released this summer.

In addition to celebrating the winners of the 2012 Awards, this year’s program will honor the life and work of journalist Anthony Shadid.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist of Lebanese American descent, known globally for his reporting of stories across the Middle East, died while on the job earlier this year. At the 2012 book award ceremony, Shadid will be remembered with a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Arab American Book Award program–the only one of its kind in the U.S.–encourages the publication and excellence of books that preserve and advance the understanding, knowledge and resources of the Arab American community. The purpose of the award, according to the museum, is to "inspire authors, educate readers and foster a respect and understanding of the Arab American culture."

The winning titles are chosen by groups of selected readers from across the country including respected authors, university professors, artists, librarians and poets.

The AANM first gave these awards in 2007 for books published in 2006.

Fiction

Winner: Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber

Honorable Mention: Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar

Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award

Winner: Arab & Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, & Belonging edited by Rabab Abdulhadi, Evelyn Alsultany and Nadine Naber

Honorable Mention: Modern Arab American Fiction: A Reader's Guide edited by Steven Salaita

Poetry

Winner: Abu Ghraib Arias by Philip Metres

Honorable Mention: Transfer by Naomi Shihab Nye

Further information about the winning books and their authors can be found on the AANM website.