S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The Brazilian-born Jo\u00e3o Baptista de Medeiros Vargens was one of two winners in the tenth edition of the Unesco-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture. The prize, awarded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) and the government of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, is granted to people or organizations all over the world that have contributed to the spread of Arab culture and to promote intercultural communication, through artistic work, academic work or others.<\/p>\n
Vargens is a professor at the Arabic Studies Sector of the School of Languages at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The holder of a degree from that same university, he studied Arabic for two years at the University of Damascus, in Syria. In the 1990s, he spent three years as a professor in Portuguese language and Brazilian culture at the Abdul Malek Assad University, in T\u00e9touan, Morocco.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Vargens established the Alm\u00e1dena publishing company, to release books relating to Arab and Brazilian culture. The company has 13 titles in print, among them four written by Vargens himself, such as L\u00e9xico Portugu\u00eas de Origem \u00c1rabe (Portuguese Lexicon of Arabic Origin). To him, however, the main work published by Alm\u00e1dena is Dicion\u00e1rio \u00c1rabe-Portugu\u00eas <\/i>(Arab-Portuguese Dictionary), written by Alphonse Nagib Sabbagh. Brazil\u2019s National Library purchased 1,000 copies of it and distributed them throughout the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that this is a body-of-work award. The Unesco awards two people, one is always an Arab and the other, a non-Arab. This was the first time in which a Brazilian nominee is awarded,\u201d says Vargens. \u201cThis is not a personal prize, it is the result of joint work by the UFRJ\u2019s Arabic studies sector and the University of S\u00e3o Paulo\u201d, he said. The professor was nominated for the Prize by the Itamaraty.<\/p>\n
His efforts to establish closer ties between Brazilians and Arabs also included devising a teaching method that turned into a book, Portugu\u00eas para falantes de \u00e1rabe <\/i>(Portuguese for Arab speakers). His methodology was used for training teachers who, in turn, taught more than 100 families of Palestinian refugees in the city of Mogi das Cruzes, in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, and in the Porto Alegre region, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In the Arab world, his method was used in the implementation of Portuguese language courses in universities in Syria and Lebanon.<\/p>\n
While teaching in Morocco, Vargens paved the way for a column in Portuguese in the French-language newspaper La Opinion. \u201cThere used to be page in Spanish on Sundays. I suggested a Portuguese page and they accepted. I would write the column with the aid of a few fellow Portuguese speakers. We would discuss Brazilian matters, from football and the World Cup to domestic political issues,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
At age 59, Vargens explains that his interest in the Arab world started in his youth. \u201cIn my teens, I would read books by Malba Tahan, a mathematics professor who wrote tales set in the Arab world. Later on, the Palestinian issue was what got me interested in Arab studies once and for all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The other winner of the Unesco prize is the Lebanese Elias Khoury. Born in Beirut, Khoury is a journalist, literary critic, novelist and playwright. He studied history and sociology in Beirut and Paris, France. He is regarded as a contemporary leader among Arab writers and scholars. From 1976 to 1979, he was the publisher of newspaper Su’un filastiniya<\/i> (Palestinian Affairs), alongside poet Mahmud Darwish. In 1992, he became the editor-in-chief of the culture and literature supplement of daily newspaper Beirute An-Nahar <\/i> (The Day).<\/p>\n
Khoury is the author of ten books, which were translated into 13 languages. His efforts to establish links between different languages and cultures led him to win the Unesco prize.<\/p>\n
The prize will be awarded on February 27th at the Unesco headquarters in Paris. The two winners will share a US$ 60,000 prize offered by the emir of Sharjah, Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qassimi, and member of the Emirates\u2019 Supreme Council.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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