Doha, Qatar – The Cultural Village Foundation (Katara) revealed the lists of nine works that would be included in the 9th Katara Prize for Arabic Novel.
This includes published novels, unpublished novels, young adult unpublished novels and unpublished critical studies, with a total reaching 36 novels and critical studies, Qatar News Agency reported.
The list of nine in the published novels category includes novelists from six Arab countries: Egypt with three novels, Lebanon with two novels and one novel each from Kuwait, Oman, Syria and Palestine.
In the unpublished novels category, the nine works include novelists from six Arab countries: Egypt with three novels and one novel each from Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
The list of nine in the young adult unpublished novels category includes novelists from seven Arab countries: Egypt and Lebanon with two novels each, while one novel from each of Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco.
Critics from three Arab countries are included in the unpublished critical studies category: Egypt and Morocco with four studies and one study from Syria.
The names of the novelists, novels and studies are available on the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel website.
Last April, 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.
The first is a list of 60 for both the published and unpublished novels categories.
The second is a list of nine publications with the names of their authors, for each category of the award, which 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 during the World Novel Week from October 13 to 20.
The 9th edition of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel saw 1,491 entries. The number of unpublished novels participating was about 833, while the number of published novels was 393 (published in 2022).
There were 191 entries in the category of unpublished works of young novelists, 68 entries in the category of unpublished studies and six entries in the published Qatari novels category.