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Tribune News Network
Doha
THE Fourth Katara Festival of Arabic Novels concluded at the Cultural Village on Tuesday with a grand ceremony to honour winners of the prestigious Katara Prize for Arabic Novel 2018.
Twenty novelists and critics won cash prizes worth a total of $575,000 in four different categories. The ceremony was attended by ministers, diplomats and other dignitaries, along with a galaxy of Arab writers, novelists and intellectuals.
in his opening address, General Manager of Katara Dr Khaled bin Ibrahim al Sulaiti thanked the participating writers and novelists for being part of the festival and making it a success.
He said the previous editions of the festival had focused on different aspects of Arabic fiction, which is a fast expanding branch of literature, and the relation between Arabic novel and theatre, by converting some prize-winning novels to theatrical productions.
"This time we have underlined the relation between novel and sports by launching the initiative #mishwar_wariwaya, an electronic application that allows users to listen to audio version of Arabic novels, while walking. We have also opened the Katara Library for Arabic Novels, the first of its kind in the region dedicated exclusively for Arabic novels," said Sulaiti.
Sulaiti said, in the next and fifth edition of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, a new category will be included for publishing novels. Conditions for participation in this category will be announced later by the award committee.
Sulaiti then gave away prizes to the winners. Five Arab novelists won the top prize of $60,000 each in the published novels category.Five winners in the unpublished novels category won cash prizes worth $30,000 each. Besides, five Arab writers bagged $15,000 each for the best critical studies on Arabic novels and five young Arab novelists won $10,000 each.
As many as 1283 entries had been received for the current and latest edition of the Prize.
