Houssem Eddine Chachia, the inaugural Hazem Ben-Gacem Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, has been awarded the the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the Young Author category for his work Al Mashhad al-Moriski: Sardiyat al-Tard fi al-Fikr al-Espani (The Morisco Landscape Narratives of Expulsion in Modern Spanish Thought). The book sheds light on the expulsion of the Moriscos who had remained in Spain, addressing its socio-cultural dimensions, and exploring the relation between memory and historic identity. Chachia, now an Assistant Professor at the University of Tunis, was in residence at CMES during the 2017-18 academic year.
The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is organized annually by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre to honour the pioneering cultural legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Founding Father of the UAE. The Award honors intellectuals, creators, publishers, and youth for their contributions to the fields of development, authorship, and translation that have had a clear impact on cultural, literary, and social life, based on scientific and objective criteria.
The Hazem Ben-Gacem Postdoctoral Fellowship, which each years brings a Tunisian scholar to Cambridge to pursue research, give and attend talks, and participate in the life of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, is part of the CMES Tunisia Office and related programming made possible by the support of Harvard College alumnus Hazem Ben-Gacem '92.
Read more about Chachia and his experiences at CMES and more about the Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
