The awarding ceremony will be attended by Italy's Prime Minister SilvioBerlusconi, a host of ministers of culture from several European counties aswell as a constellation of Nobel Laureates including Jose Saramago, NadineGordimer, Wole Soyinka and Gunter Grass who all won the Grinzane Cavour Prizebefore becoming winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This year, the Grinzane Cavour Prize will be awarded for the first time inits history to this Arab leading literary and intellectual figure who built afully-integrated enlightenment approach that would later give shape to hisintellectual project with the publication of his first book 30 years ago.

Heggy's intellectual project went through 3 distinct periods: the firstperiod saw 3 books which dealt a comprehensive critique to the Marxist andsocialist theories and practices while the second phase featured a series of 7books which give a detailed description and diagnosis of the political andsocial, political, economic, cultural and educational problems facing the ArabWorld; In the id 1990's, Al-Heggy started to focus on the negative aspects ofthe Arab societies' prevailing cultural climate which has its roots in thehighly negative understanding and interpretation of religion which went inline with extremism in curricula adopted by many Arab educationalinstitutions.

Besides writing 17 books in Arabic, Heggy repertoire includes 5 books inEnglish (published during the 3rd period) which dealt with intellectual,cultural and educational maladies prevailing in most of the Arab culturallandscapes.

Throughout the last ten years, Heggy's intellectual project gainedvisibility at most international institutions and think tanks.. The Universityof Toronto decided to establish a permanent annual scholarship for post-graduate studies in Comparative Jewish/Muslim relations named after Heggy whoalso co-established The Coptic Studies Chair at The American University inCairo (AUC).

Among Heggy's most recent accomplishments is a cultural enlightenmentproject for "Averroes & Maimonides Council", a foundation dedicated tocultural exchange, being implemented in collaboration with Al Waref Institutefounded by Marah Bukai in Washington D.C.

SOURCE Al Waref Institute