ALGIERS – Thursday, 07 September 2023 (APS) – Algerian poet Assia Ahmed Abdellaoui has received the first  Abdul Hameed Shoman Prize of Children’s Literature, awarded by Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, the organizers said.

In a statement posted on its website Tuesday, the Jordan-based Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, has unveiled the names of the three winners of its children’s literature prize 2023, for which 492 creators from 17 Arab and foreign countries had been competing in the field of poetry, “on the theme of environment for children aged 9-12 years old.”

Algerian poet Assia Ahmed Abdellaoui won the first prize through a collection of poems entitled “Hamassate Al-Kaynate,” while the second prize went to Iraqi poet Mohamed Bakr Jameel Al-Hussein and the third to Syrian poet Aissam Abdel-Salam Mohamed Kinj Al-Halabi.

Holder of a Master’s degree in French didactics, Assia Abdellaoui is a lyric poet and a writer of many children’s songs in Arabic. She has also written two children’s storybooks.