Awards: Hugo; Arabic Fiction; Pushkin House Russian; Arthur Ellis Crime

Finalists for the 2016 Hugo Awards in 17 categories have been announced and can be seen here. Winners will be celebrated on August 20 at MidAmeriCon II in Kansas City, Mo.

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Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba by Rabai al-Madhoun has won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The author, whose book was published in Haifa by Maktabat Kul Shee, wins $50,000 and a guaranteed English translation.

Born in Palestinian and now a British citizen Al-Madhoun, lives and works in London as an editor for Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper. His 2010 novel, The Lady from Tel Aviv, was shortlisted for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. That book was subsequently published in English by Telegram Books in 2013 and won the English PEN Writers in Translation award.

Chair of the judges Amina Thiban commented: "In Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba, Rabai al-Madhoun invents a new fictional form in order to address the Palestinian issue, with questions of identity underpinned by a very human perspective on the struggle. This tragic, polyphonic novel borrows the symbol of the concerto, with its different movements, to represent the multiplicity of destinies. Destinies can be considered the complete Palestinian novel, travelling back to a time before the nakba in order to throw light on current difficulties faced by the Palestinian diaspora and the sense of displacement felt by those left behind."

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Dominic Lieven won the £5,000 (about $7,240) Pushkin House Russian Book Prize, which recognizes the "best nonfiction writing published in English," for Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia, the Bookseller reported. A second prize of £2,000 (about $2,915) for the best Russian book in translation went to Oleg Khlevniuk and his translator Nora Favorov for Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator.

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Crime Writers of Canada announced the shortlists in eight categories for this year's Arthur Ellis Awards, which recognize excellence in Canadian crime writing. Winners will be named May 26 in Toronto.

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