The Public Institution for Cultural Village “Katara” announced the list of the best works participating in the tenth session of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, which totals 36 novels and critical studies eligible to win the award.
The list includes 9 novels in each of the categories of published novels, unpublished novels, unpublished novels for young people, and unpublished critical studies.
The list includes published novels by novelists from 6 Arab countries. Egypt topped the list with 4 novels, and one novel each from Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon.
As for the unpublished novels category, it included novelists from 7 Arab countries, with Morocco topping the list with 3 novels, and one novel each from Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, and Mauritania.
The list includes 9 unpublished young adult novels from 7 Arab countries, including 3 novels from Egypt, and one novel each from Kuwait, the Emirates, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, and Morocco.
The unpublished critical studies category also includes critics from 7 Arab countries, with Morocco participating with 3 critical studies, and one study each from Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Iraq, Algeria and Tunisia.
As for the historical novels category, it includes novelists from 4 Arab countries. Egypt topped the list with 4 novels, followed by Iraq and Morocco with two novels for each country, then one novel from Jordan.
The Public Institution for Cultural Village “Katara” announced last February 2024 an amendment to the system for publishing the nomination lists of the best works participating in the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, starting from the tenth session of the award, where the first list is published in June of each year with 18 works nominated for the categories of “published novel, unpublished novel, unpublished historical novel, novels for young people, and unpublished studies”, and the second list is published in August of each year with 9 works nominated in the aforementioned award categories, in response to the desire of many participants and those interested in the development of the Arabic novel.
The category of published Qatari novels is excluded from the lists, and the winners are announced directly.
It is worth noting that the number of entries in the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in its tenth session for the year 2024 amounted to 1697 entries, and the number of unpublished novels participating in this session topped with 886 novels, while the number of published novels amounted to 437 novels, published in 2023, and 177 entries in the category of unpublished novels for young people, and 91 entries in the category of unpublished studies, in addition to 7 published Qatari novels, and 99 unpublished historical novels in the sixth category of the award.