(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The late Iraqi novelist Ghaib Tuma Farman is Person of the Year for the upcoming sixth edition of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel to be held on October 13, the Cultural Village Foundation — Katara has announced.
Every year since its second edition, the Prize has been celebrating an Arab literary figure who has left an indelible mark on Arab literature through which Katara seeks to honour the generation of pioneers who have contributed immensely in raising awareness in Arab societies through their literary and intellectual creations.
The event honours the chosen Person of the Year through a number of events and activities, including a photo exhibition documenting the most important milestones in his life, a symposium on his life and works, a book launch and a documentary film.
Born in Baghdad in 1927, Farman belongs to the pioneering writers in Iraq. He is best known in Iraqi literature for his social-realist novels and for having contributed to the advancement of Iraqi literature during the 20th century. All his novels were published when he was away from Iraq and living in Moscow where he died in 1990.
Previous Persons of the Year included Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, who was the first Arab to win Nobel Prize for Literature, Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih described as the ‘genius of the modern Arabic novel', foremost Palestinian novelist and activist Ghassan Kanafani, and prominent Tunisian writer and thinker Mahmoud Al Masaadi.
The sixth edition of the prestigious Katara Prize for Arabic Novel has achieved record participation with a total of 2,220 entries in various categories, a 20 percent increase from last year.
This year's entries comprise 1,005 unpublished novels, 930 published novels all released last year, 195 unpublished novels by young writers, 75 unpublished studies and 15 published Qatari novels.
In terms of geographical distribution of participants, Egypt and Sudan came first in the Arab countries in terms of numbers with 986 participants, followed by Maghreb countries with 565 entries, then the Levant and Iraq with 533 participation. Gulf countries registered 124 participants, while 12 entries came from non-Arab countries.
Women's participation in the Prize this year reached 552 while 1,668 entries were by men.
This year has seen the addition of a new category, which is the Qatari novel aimed at enhancing the presence of Qatari novels in local and Arab literary scene as well as encouraging Qatari novelists to be more creative in this literary genre, which has been witnessing great momentum on the level of production where a number of young Qatari novelists have emerged.
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