Doha, Qatar: The Cultural Village Foundation, Katara announced that participants for the Katara Novel and Fine Art competition has reached 266 for all the three categories.
The number of entries in the published novels category reached 93, while under the unpublished novels category, 91.
The category of novels for boys reached 82 in participation as well. The highest number of participation was from Egypt and Sudan with 101, and the Levant and Iraq ranked second with about 67, and in the third place the Arab Maghreb with about 63, followed by the Arab Gulf with 33, while the number of non-Arab countries reached only two.
For the first time in the history of the competition, women achieved the highest participation rates in the three categories of the award, as their participation in the category of published novels reached 55, compared to 38 for males, and in the category of unpublished novels, the number of female participants reached 51, compared to 40 for male participation. In the category of boys’ novels, the number of female participation reached 47, compared to 35 for male.
The idea of the competition is summed up in drawing paintings for the outer covers of the publications of the eighth session of the Katara Prize for the Novel, which will be printed in Arabic and other foreign languages, and will be distributed during the ninth session of the Katara Festival for the Arabic Novel, which is scheduled to be held in October, in conjunction with the International Week of Arabic Fiction, which will be held from October 13 to 20.
The competition set a number of technical conditions related to the size of the painting, as it is required to be a hand-drawn drawing 19cm long and 16cm wide, and the size of the painting can be enlarged while preserving the ratio of length and width, provided that it is delivered in jpg format without signing inside the painting, and the artist can participate with only one painting, for each work, provided that the painting expresses the content of the novel.
The winner of the most beautiful cover painting for each novel will receive $500, in addition to placing the winning painting on the cover of the novel and mentioning the name of the artist who owns the painting in the publication, provided that the rights to use the winning painting belongs to Katara.
