Chair of the Judges:

Taleb Alrefai, KUWAIT
Taleb Alrefai is a novelist and short story writer. He is the author of a number of works, including The Shade of the Sun, Petty Thefts and The Dress. In 2002, he won the Kuwaiti State Prize for Literature for his novel Scent of the Sea. He has worked for the Kuwaiti National Council of Culture, Arts and Literature and edited the monthly arts review, Jaridat Al Fonoon, between 2003 and 2008. In addition to writing fiction, he has published several literary and historical studies.

 
  
 
 The panel (In alphabetical order):

Raja' Ben Salamah, TUNISIA
Raja' Ben Salamah is a lecturer at the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities at Manouba University, Tunisia. She currently works in the field of psychoanalysis and runs the Alawan website. She is the founding member of the Manifeste des Libertés, based in France, as well as a member of the League of Arab Rationalists and the Tunisian Association for the Defence of Secularism. Her published works include: A critique of the Man of the Masses, The Construction of Masculinity and Desire and Writing.
 

Frédéric LaGrange, FRANCE
Frédéric LaGrange is an academic and translator working in the field of modern and classical Arabic literature. His research interests include gender studies applied to Arabic literature, the relationship between spoken and written Arabic in the Arabic novel, and linguistic variation in Arabic literature. He is presently Head of the Arabic and Hebraic Department at the Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), where he lectures in Arabic literature.

 

Saif al-Rahbi, OMAN
Saif al-Rahbi is a writer and poet. He studied journalism in Cairo and has lived in several countries. He has worked in cultural journalism for over 25 years and is currently editor-in-chief of the cultural quarterly magazine Nizwa, published in Muscat. Selections of his work have been translated into a number languages, including English, French, German, Dutch and Polish. His published works include: The Green Mountain, The Traveller's Head and The Soldier Who Saw the Bird in His Sleep.