Moroccan writers Said bin Lahcen Aoubou and Farid Al Khammal won the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in its ninth edition in Doha, Qatar, in the categories of novel research and criticism, and boys’ novels.
The Cultural Village Foundation “Katara” announced the winners at the prize-awarding ceremony.
Aoubou won the novel research and criticism prize for his study on the “Culture of the Contemporary Arab.” Egyptians Mohamed Zidane and Nahla Raheel got the same prize for their pieces “The Rhetoric of the Contemporary Novel Text,” and “Identity Reconciliation, Intersectionality of Gender and Race in Feminist Autobiography” respectively.
The value of each award is $30,000. The award committee will take charge of printing, publishing, and marketing the said studies.
Farid Al Khammal won the boys’ novel prize for his work “The Centipede.” The same prize was awarded to Egyptian Ahmed Tousson for his novel “The Tissue Seller” and Lebanese Abdel Majeed Hussein Zaraqit for his novel “The Strange Journey Sons of the Moon.”
The Katara Festival will run until October 20. It features exhibitions, seminars and a book signing ceremony for winning works from past iteration.