Rainbow Caterpillar Multilingual Children’s Bookshop, is proud to announce that the winner of the first Rainbow Caterpillar Children’s Literature in Mother Language Award is Ahmad Marouf for the short story Sea of Pearls written in Arabic.

The award is given for superior writing for children in a language other than French or English to an original unpublished story by a Canadian citizen or resident as selected by an independent blind panel of judges.

“We hope through this award to encourage writers of diverse backgrounds to go back to their roots and produce works in their mother languages,” says Hanoosh Abbasi, co-owner of Rainbow Caterpillar Multilingual Bookshop. “In that way we aim to foster in Canada a rich production of stories for children in mother languages. We do hope there is sufficient interest in the writing community and this proves to be just the first edition of what will become a regular Award.”

The Award received a total of 37 stories in 8 languages from across Canada.

The Award ceremony will be hosted by the Canadian Ethnic Media Association (CEMA) in the context of its own 33rd Annual Awards Gala

Saturday December 10, 2011
Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre
235 Queen’s QuayWest
Pre-Awards Reception @ 6:00 p.m.
Awards Program begins promptly @ 7:00 p.m.
Followed by Awards Reception @ 9:00 p.m.
To reserve tickets please call (416) 764-3082 or email: lisa.warner@rci.rogers.com

Rainbow Caterpillar gratefully aknowledges the generous support of CEMA for hosting the 2011 Rainbow Caterpillar Award and for their tireless work in supporting writers and journalists in mother languages in Canada

Beyond the winner, this year’s Honourable Mentions are:

Farzaneh Moaven – Who Do You Love The Most? (Farsi)
Letizia Tesi – Gino Salamino (Italian)
Sonia Sa – The Happy King (Portuguese)
Liet Lee Lopes – The First Snowman (Spanish)
Gerald Luzangi, Dorothy Luzangi, Verdiana Mhate Luzangi – Hunter with the Snake (Swahili)

Special thanks to the following individuals for donating their time to be judges:
Qais Ghanem, Arabic; Soodabeh Dahesh, Farsi; Krisztina Groe, Hungarian; Mariella Bertelli, Italian; Corrado Paina, Italian; Salvatore Bancheri, Italian; Suzy Soares, Portuguese; AnaBela Taborda, Portuguese; Barbara D’Oro Pereira, Portuguese; Zulima Wesso, Spanish; Martha Batiz, Spanish; Oswald Almasi, Swahili.

About Ahmad Marouf
Ahmad Marouf is a journalist and a script writer. He has been working for Radio Canada International in the Arabic Section since his arriving to Canada on 2005. He worked for the National Syrian TV as a producer of many programs, wrote many scripts for short cartoon movies for children, and wrote also the script of the first cartoon series ever produced by the national Syrian television. Marouf published a collection of short stories in Arabic on 1998 and a small poetic texts collection in English in 2000. Currently Marouf collaborates with director Gaby Andraos on a documentary titled “One Heart … Two Homes” and has recently finished writing a feature movie screenplay named “The Noise of Living with Others”.

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For more information:
Hanoosh Abbasi – 647-975-8800