♠ The American University in Cairo Press will announce the winner of the 2013 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature on 11 December, at the AUC Oriental Hall, on the anniversary of the Egyptian Nobel literature laureate's birth in 1911. The Mahfouz Medal is awarded every year by a distinguished panel of judges, and consists of a silver medal, a cash prize of $1,000, and an English translation and publication of the winning novel by the AUC Press. In welcoming the annual award when it was inaugurated in 1996, Naguib Mahfouz said: “The announcement of this award honouring writers and literature of the Arab world is the most pleasurable event on my birthday.” This year's panel of judges for the Mahfouz Medal are Tahia Abdel-Nasser, Sherine Abul-Naga, Mona Tolba, Hussein Hammouda, and Abdu Wazen. Also on 11 December, the AUC Press will celebrate the translation and publication of the winning novel of the Mahfouz Medal in 2012 — Ezzat Al-Kamhawi's Bayt Al-Dib—as well as three new paperback editions of works by Naguib Mahfouz: Cairo Modern, Dreams of Departure, and Three Ancient Egyptian Novels; and Hamdi Al-Gazzar's novel Private Pleasures.
