(Baghdad, Iraq) – The Sheikh Zayed Book Award of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre (ALC), part of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), has recognized a book published by the AUIB Press by including it in its longlisted titles for the “Translation” category for its 16th edition. Among the many books published this year in Arabic translation, only ten titles from publishers in six Arab countries were chosen out of a total of 148 submissions. These ten titles nominated for the longlist were published in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

AUIB Press published ‘Al Muwatana Muta’addidat al Thaqafat: Natharyia Liberaliya li Huqooq al Aqaliyyat’ this year. The original English-language book, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, was authored by Canadian philosopher and academic Will Kymlicka as part of the Oxford University series on Political Theory. First published in 1995, it has remained a classic textbook in use at universities around the world ever since. Kymlicka’s book examines the challenges modern states face in dealing with multiculturalism, recognizing that the needs of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous people and national minorities and thus require different responses from the state.

The AUIB Press is part of AUIB’s support to Iraq’s public universities and the larger Arab world by making relevant and highly important English-language texts available in Arabic for use in classes and libraries and by the general public. Dr. Michael Mulnix, President of AUIB, noted the importance of the university press to this support. “As a university,” he said, “we want to be a bridge between cultures, bringing the best of the U.S. and the West to the Middle East, while also sharing the best of Arab and Middle Eastern culture with the rest of the world through the medium of English. Making classic texts available in Arabic is a key part of our support to Iraq’s universities. We are honored to be included in this list of important translations and for our Press to be recognized by the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for the work it is doing,” concluded President Mulnix.

Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, was translated by Abdennour Kharraki from Morocco, and published by the American University of Iraq – Baghdad in 2021.

AUIB is a private, non-profit university established in 2018. It currently has eight colleges.