Paso del Estrecho Award Ceremony at the Alhambra

The director of the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife, María del Mar Villafranca, presided this afternoon at the conference hall of the Palace of Charles V, the second edition of the literary awards Paso del Estrecho. During the event was presented the book that collects the short stories written by the winners of the contest´s first edition, held in 2008. The day has concluded with the musical performance of the chorus Coral Ciudad de Granada.
In the category for Arabic, the first prize went to the Moroccan writer Mohamed Zitoune for “L’hrig”, whereas finalists have been Zineb Benyaya (Almeria) for “´the at-Tariq”, and Hassan Bakkali, from Morocco, for “´ubur”. With regard to the authors who have written short stories in Spanish, the best text was that of Guadalupe Ingelmo, from Madrid, for “Bajo el signo del naufragio”, and finalists have been José M. Motos Galera for “Nuestro Valle” and Juan Ángel Brage Vizoso for “La otra orilla”. Both finalists are from Granada.
About 200 stories have taken part in the Second Paso del Estrecho Short Story Award Contest, which is the only one worldwide that admits short stories both in Spanish and Arabic. To the contest, organized by the Fundación Cultura y Sociedad, texts have been presented from writers of 24 countries of four continents.
Among the participants in the contest, there have been men and women in equal percentage, young and old – from a 12-year-old girl from Granada up to a 80-year-old Columbian woman, as well as Spanish- and Arabic-speaking assistants. In this second edition has also increased the number of texts in Arabic, which represent one third of the total presented.
The jury, coordinated by the Doctor of Philology Antonio Barnés, is composed of Mouna Aboussi, Language Assistant for Arabic at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas of Malaga, José Julio Cabanillas, author and Literature Teacher in Seville; Jesus Cotta, author and Philosophy Teacher in Seville, Miguel d’Ors, poet, Critics Prize winner and Professor of Literature at the University of Granada, Ángel Esteban, author and Professor of Literature of the University of Granada, Pilar González, Arabic Teacher in the secondary school San Justino in Madrid, and Aram Hamparzoumian, Arabic Teacher at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas of Malaga.
The Paso del Estrecho Award, organized to strengthen ties between the Western and Arabic culture by the Fundación Cultura y Sociedad, in collaboration with the AUPEMEC (UNESCO Association to Promote Media Ethics).