Doha: The Cultural Village Foundation, Katara, announced that it has made amendments to the method of announcing the winners of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, so that this announcement precedes the publication of two lists of the best novels nominated for winning during each cycle of the award.
Publication of two lists of the best novels nominated for winning during each cycle of the award will be in June, and the list of nine publications with the names of their authors, for each category of the award, will be published in September, one month before the official announcement of the winners of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, which is held annually in the International Week of the Novel from October 13 to 20.
Katara General Manager Prof. Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti attributed these amendments to the many requests received by the award committee for the announcement of nomination lists for the best works even if they did not achieve the first ranks. Because merely entering the lists of the best works means that they are distinguished, and this is a testimony by itself; it is one of the sorting and arbitration committees, which would give the works that reach the recent lists fame and contribute to the speed of publication if they were from the category of unpublished novels.
He added that these amendments to the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel will come into force as of the current ninth edition of the prize 2023, which will also witness a great momentum that will last for a week in conjunction with the International Week of the Novel, which Katara celebrated for the first time last year 2022 at the Unesco headquarters in the French capital, Paris.
Khaled Abdel Rahim Al Sayed, General Supervisor of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, said that the list system will add an atmosphere of suspense to the award, and will reflect positively on novelists who can obtain a classification by obtaining advanced ranks for their novels that are eligible for winning, even if they did not win an award. Thus, the sales of these novels increase, benefiting authors and publishers alike.
Al Sayed stressed that the celebration of the International Week of the Novel this year will be very special, given that it will be held for the first time in the Katara Cultural Village, after the adoption of the International Week of the Novel by Unesco. He indicated the week will include a number of events, including parties signing the winning publications in the previous session, in addition to the activity of the novel and plastic art, and the activity of theatre and the novel, celebrating the personality of the year.
He said that the committee chose Ihsan Abdel Quddous, the Egyptian writer and novelist, to be the personality of the year 2023. Work is also underway to develop the novel’s website to become an electronic portal specialised in the Arabic novel.
On the other hand, Katara announced that the number of participants in the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in its ninth session for the year 2023 reached 1,491, and the number of unpublished novels participating in this session reached 833 novels, while the number of published novels reached 393 that have been published.
