It's time to put right media injustice — MinisterABDULLAH ABYAN & BARI'A FARISJEDDAH/ABU DHABI: Abdul Aziz Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, has lauded the work of “Arabic Booker” prize winner Raja Alem and added that the media “has failed to do her justice”. “Rajaa' Alim's winning the prize does her justice, she is one of the most notable novelists in the Arab World, a leading figure in literature,” Khoja said. “The media has not done her justice, and the time has come to put that right.” Khoja said Raja Alem's winning of the 2011 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a prize instituted in association with the Booker Prize Foundation, would also go some way to “breaking the stereotype of Gulf women which portrays them as weak and unable to match men in a world of male dominion”. “I have read The Dove's Necklace,” the minister said. “It plunges into the life of Makkan society and rises to the surface at many points in the holy city. The finer points of life in Makkah grant writers a wide scope of creativity to play with.” Khoja said the Ministry of Culture and Information plans to honor Alem “in the way that she deems fit”. “She will be warmly and grateful honored,” he said. “She deserves that, and much more.” Crowning of Alem's style The publisher of The Dove's Necklace has said its joint-winning of the “Arabic Booker” is the “crowning of Alem's body of work and writing style”. “The language she uses is irreproachable and beautiful, and constitutes a new step forward for the Arabic-language novel, for new readers,” said Haitham Fadhil of the Arab Cultural Center publishing house. “It's a validation of her amazing and beautiful work.” Fadhil described the “Arabic Booker” as “the people's prize”. “Being awarded the prize shows how Alem has managed to reach large numbers of the Arab public,” he said. He described the author herself as a person paying “extreme attention to detail”. “She pays great attention to the selection of every word, is very thorough in her treatment, but not in a way that makes her hard to work with. We were the first house to publish Raja's work because we admire her and believe in the way she writes. Her attention to detail provides a form of protection for us as a publisher, and provides us with reassurance, not worry.” He said that The Dove's Necklace, which was published three months ago, would now undergo the process of translation, work in which the author herself will also be involved. “We would like to congratulate her on winning the prize, which does not just represent the success of Saudi writers but of all Arab writers who are producing new forms of the Arabic novel,” he said. Alim shared the 2011 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, whose winners were announced Monday, with Moroccan author Mohammed Achaari for his novel The Arch and the Butterfly, making her the first woman and the second Saudi to have been given the award in its five-year history. The prize is funded by the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy and is supported by the Booker Prize Foundation, the charity behind the Man Booker Prize for English language fiction, and by the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Iraqi writer Fadhil Al-Azzawi, who chaired the judging panel, described the winning works as “two wonderful novels with great literary quality” that both “deal with important and realistic problems in the Middle East, problems which have been reflected on banners during the recent protests that have shaken the Arab World, demanding change”.
