THe Department of Modern Languages ranked the second place in The Goncourt Literary Contest recently held in Beirut, 2016 . The contest, “The East Choice," was organized by the Middle East Office of Francophone University Association (French: Agence universitaire de la Francophonie) for the year 2016. Sarah Masa’deh critiqued and analyzed the novel, Quiet Song, written by Laila Sulimani. Dr. Batool Muheisen—the contest's coordinator at the Department of Modern Languages — indicated that the contest is interested in French Literature and is given by Goncourt Academy to the best prose work in four literary forms: Novel, Short Story, Poetry, and Biography written in 2016 and the award goes to those who offer the best reading and analysis of the literary work in question.