Emirati receives Indian lifetime literary achievement award

Dr Shehab M Ghanem, winner of various literary awards, will receive the Lifetime Achievement award today, for translating poems from Arabic into Malayalam and vice-versa.

The UAE poet and author will be honoured for his immense contribution to Malayalam literature. An established technocrat and an engineer by profession, Dr Ghanem is known in the Kerala community here as an author, poet and translator, who has written about 60 books.

The award is being proffered by Chiranthana Samskarika Vedi, a socio-cultural organization in association with UAE Exchange, which announced its first literary awards in 2016.

“Other winners of Chiaranthana Samskarika Vedi Literary Awards are K M Abbas (Essays—Charithra Vibranthikal), Shemi (Novel—Nadavayalile Nerukal), Honey Bhaskar (Poetry –Sealu Vachaa Parudeesa), and Munawar Valancherry (Short Story--Thirichuvaravu),” said Punnakkan Mohammed Ali, President of the Association. All the authors who have won the literary prizes are UAE-based Indian writers in Malayalam.

“K P Noorudeen, a socio-political personality from Kerala will also be honoured with the lifetime literary award along with Dr Shehab Ghanem,” said Gopa Kumar Bhargavan, Chief Marketing Officer, UAE Exchange.

The literary awards are part of the Chiranthana Samskarika Vedi’s 15th anniversary celebrations.

Dr Ganem has translated poems of several eminent Malayalam authors such as Sachidananthan, Kadambanitta, Kamala Surayya, Idashery, Aiyyappa Panicker and Yousuf Ali Kocheri among others into Arabic. The UAE author was the first Arabic poet to win the prestigious Tagore Peace Award in 2012.

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