The talented young winners of the Oxford University Press (OUP) Story Writing Competition were honoured today at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2020 in a special prize-giving ceremony. The annual competition is a fixture of the academic calendar with more than 3000 students from the UAE sending in their entries this year.
The competition runs in Arabic and in English and is divided into age-specific categories: 11 and under, 12-14, 15-17 and 18-25. Each winner received a book containing their original short stories and a winner’s plaque. Presenting the awards at the ceremony were 2020 Festival authors Sara- Jane Arbury, Fiona Ross and Rania Zaghir.
The theme for the competition was ‘Tomorrow’. “This really captured the imaginations of the students who entered this year and along with many exploring a science fiction theme, there were others who gave us hair-raising visions of what the world might look like with climate change while others saw it as an opportunity to show how we can make the world a better place,” said Julie Till, Head of Central Asia, Middle East & North Africa at Oxford University Press. ‘It is really wonderful to be able to support these young writers’ through this competition and we hope it leads to a love of writing for pleasure in the years to come”.