Doha: The Katara Cultural Village Foundation has announced the shortlist of 18 works for the 12th edition of the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel. The shortlist, presented in alphabetical order, includes works in the categories of published and unpublished novels, young adult novels, historical novels, and critical studies. The list is available on the prize’s website (kataranovels.com).
Each shortlist comprises 18 works. The unpublished novels category features novelists from 10 countries, including four novels from Egypt, three each from Syria and Palestine, two from Algeria, and one each from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan, Morocco, and Tunisia.
The shortlist of 18 novels in the published novel category included novelists from nine Arab countries, with eight novels from Egypt, two each from Algeria and Lebanon, and one each from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan.
The critical studies category included critics from nine countries, eight of which were Arab and one African. Morocco led with eight studies, followed by Egypt with three, and one each from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Palestine, Yemen, Mauritania, and Guinea.
The young adult novel category included novelists from six Arab countries. Algerian novelists topped the list with six nominees among the eighteen, followed by Egypt and Morocco with four each, Jordan with two, and Yemen and Tunisia with one each.
The historical novel category included 18 novels from eight countries, with seven from Egypt, four from Algeria, two from Morocco, and one each from Oman, Yemen, Sudan, Palestine, and Tunisia. The shortlist of nine authors for the Katara Prize for Arabic Fiction, across its five categories, is scheduled to be published next August.
For the Qatari novel category, the submitted works will be evaluated, and the winners in this and the other five categories will be announced during the 12th Katara Festival of Arabic Fiction.
It is worth noting that the 12th edition of the Katara Prize for Arabic Fiction received 2,610 submissions, the highest number since the prize’s inception in 2014, surpassing the previous record of 2,321 submissions received in the seventh edition (2021).
