The Mahmoud Darwish Foundation announced the names of the winners of its annual prize in its thirteenth session, in a ceremony held in the city of Ramallah, coinciding with the birthday of the late Palestinian poet in question.
The Foundation awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Creativity for the year 2022 to Palestinian critic Faisal Darraj, Syrian publisher Farouk Mardam Bey, Syrian critic Sobhi Hadidi and British international artist Roger Waters.
The jury headed by Wassini Al-Araj said in the justifications for awarding the award to Darrag: “This is due to his dedication to his critical and knowledge work in order to establish a true concept of criticism based on objective mechanisms without compromising the aesthetics of the texts.”
The committee stated in a statement: “The eligibility of many Arab candidates, from filmmakers, visual arts and literary creativity, to win the Mahmoud Darwish Prize, and with the difficulty of separating many of the award recipients with distinction, the committee decided to award it equally to Mardam Bey and Hadidi.”
In its statement, the committee mentioned the importance of the role of the Syrian publisher, Murd Bey, in sponsoring Darwish’s works and following up on their translation into French, which contributed to the publication of Darwish’s literary blog in French and international cultural circles, stressing his effective and essential role in the Journal of Palestinian Studies.
The statement referred to the strong friendship that brought together the critic Sobhi Hadidi and the late poet Mahmoud Darwish, which prompted Hadidi to follow up on Darwish’s work and contribute to its publication and delivery of her ideas in the best and most accurate pictures.
The committee attributed the reasons for awarding the award at the international level to British artist Roger Waters to his courageous and clear stances towards Palestine and its people resisting all forms of surrender, whether through his protest actions within the boycott of Israel movement, or through his appeal to world artists to refrain from organizing concerts in Israel because it is an occupying country.
She added that Waters: “He sang to Darwish many poems, including: the sermon of the Red Indian in front of the white man, and he also protested strongly following (former US President) Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. After the occupation army attacked the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, he considered Israel an apartheid state.” .
British artist Roger Waters decided to donate the amount of the prize amounting to 12 thousand dollars to a Palestinian artist and pledged to provide the same amount annually to a promising Palestinian artist.