Chair of the Judges:

Youmna el Eid, LEBANON
Youmna el Eid is a renowned academic and a critic of contemporary literature. She has published several books on the contemporary novel and is an active and consulting member of several institutions and editorial boards of Arabic magazines. One of her notable works is The Narrator, Position and Form.
 
  
 
 The panel (In alphabetical order):

Rasheed el-Enany, EGYPT
Rasheed el-Enany is an authority on contemporary Arabic literature. He is professor of modern Arabic literature and director of the Institute of Arab Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning.

 
 

Hartmut Faehndrich, GERMANY
Hartmut Faehndrich studied Comparative Literature and Islamic Studies in Germany and the USA. He has been translating contemporary Arabic literature since the mid-1980s. 2008 sees him celebrating the translation of 50 novels and short stories from Arabic to German, mainly from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and Libya.

 

Mohammad al Murr, UAE
Mohamed al Murr is a renowned short story writer and journalist. He has written at least 15 collections of short stories, and is best-known for The Wink of an Eye and Bleeding Heart. He is the head of the Dubai Cultural Council, which merged recently with the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority.
 

Fakhri Saleh, JORDAN
Fakhri Saleh is a leading critic and an authority on contemporary Arabic literature. He studied English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Jordan. He has weekly columns in Al-Hayat (London) and Al-Khalij (Sharjah) newspapers, and is the cultural editor of Ad-Dastour (Amman).