Morocco took part in the 19th Katara Prize for Arabic Novel with 15 works in both published and unpublished novel categories.
The Cultural Village Foundation, Katara, presented the list of the most highly acclaimed participating novelists in the category of published novels from 14 Arab countries, including Egypt with 19 novels, Syria with 9 novels, Lebanon and Jordan with 5 novels each, and Kuwait and Morocco with 4 novels each.
Algeria joined the list with 3 published novels. Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq and Palestine had 2 novels each, while Sudan, Tunisia and Mauritania all contributed single works.
As for the unpublished novels, the list includes novelists from 12 Arab countries, including Egypt with 13, Morocco with 11, and Tunisia with 10.
Syria and Algeria were also recognized with 6 novels each, along with Iraq with 5 novels. Lebanon, Jordan and Yemen participated in the competition with 2 novels emanating from each nation.
Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Libya competed with a novel each.
Egypt topped the list of both categories with 32 novels in all, followed by Morocco and Syria with 15 novels for the two categories, Tunisia with 11 novels, Algeria with 9 novels, and the countries of Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan with 7 novels each.
Kuwait participated only in the category of published novels. They had 4, with Saudi Arabia totaling 3.
Oman, Sudan, Yemen, and Palestine took part in the competition with 2 novels, while Mauritania had only a single work in the category of published novels.
Almost 1,500 participants took part in this 19th edition, in addition to 833 works in the unpublished novels category and 393 published novels in 2022.
The 19th edition saw the participation of 191 works in the category of unpublished novels by males and 68 novels in the category of unpublished studies.
There were 6 Qatari novels that were published in the fifth category of the prize.