(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Activities for the sixth edition of the prestigious Katara Prize for Arabic Novel kick off virtually today, the Cultural Village Foundation (Katara) has announced. The event will include a recorded speech of Katara General Manager, Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, and the announcement of winners in the five categories of the award. One of the richest literary prizes in the world, Katara Prize for Arabic Novel has a total prize of $635,000 to be distributed to 21 winners.
The $300,000 prize will be distributed equally to five winners in the published novel category, while $150,000 will be given away to five winners in the unpublished novel category each receiving $30,000. In the unpublished studies category, five winners will be selected to receive $15,000 each, while five winners will be chosen in the unpublished novels by young writers category to be awarded $10,000 each. One Qatari novelist will be selected to be the very first winner in this new category and receive $60,000.
Another highlight of the event will be the conferment of the Al Dhad Shield award which this year goes to Dr. Ali Ahmed Al Kubaisi, member of the Academic Council for the Doha Historical Dictionary of Arabic Language and former Director General of the World Organization for Renaissance of Arabic Language. Meanwhile, Katara has announced the five names of those who qualified for the finals of the 'Promising Novelist programme which was launched by the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in cooperation with the Qatari Women's Pen Forum in February last year. The promising novelists will be honoured at the event and their novels will be published by Katara Publishing House.
The five most promising novelists are Al Ghalia Muhammad Al Mansouri, Nujoud Abdel Qader Mustafa, Noura Abdullah Al Zakiba, Helana Aref Al Wardat, and Aisha Al Mansouri.
This year's edition of Katara Prize for Arabic Novel is distinguished for achieving record participation with a total of 2,220 entries in various categories, a 20 percent increase from last year.
The entries comprise 1,005 unpublished novels, 930 published novels all released last year, 195 unpublished novels by young writers, 75 unpublished studies and 15 published Qatari novels.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 saw 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.
MENAFN1310202000630000ID1100947766
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.