The Cultural Village Foundation (Katara) announced that there is a great demand for participation in the Katara Short Story Competition this year under the theme ‘Environmental Sustainability,’ as it reached 563 participants from 21 countries, including 17 Arab countries. The results of the competition are scheduled to be announced next July.
Egypt and Sudan had 220 participations, followed by the Levant and Iraq in the second place with about 157 participations. In the third place came the Arab Maghreb with 134, and in the fourth place came the Arab Gulf with about 48 participations, while four non-Arab countries participated.
General Manager of the Cultural Village Foundation (Katara) Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti said that this year, the Katara Short Story Competition chose the topic of "Environmental Sustainability" in order to keep pace with the International Horticultural Expo 2023, which will be hosted by Qatar during Oct. 2, 2023 to Mar. 28, 2024, and is mainly concerned with developing environmental awareness and sustainability.
One of the conditions for the Katara Short Story Competition this year is that the text should not be less than 1,500 words and not more than 5,000. The story also should be written in classical Arabic, in a language free of spelling errors, taking into account the placement of punctuation marks. In addition, the story must not have been previously published in any of the media or won any award before so it is for the competition only. The conditions included that the Katara Publishing House has the right to publish the winning stories as the author's sending of the story is considered a final approval for its publication in the event of winning.
Last Ramadan, Katara launched the Short Story Competition of 2023 and chose the theme "Environmental Sustainability" as a main focus for participating stories for this year, given the importance of environmental sustainability in avoiding the depletion or deterioration of natural resources and preserving long-term environmental quality.
Katara has allocated three prizes for the competition. The winner of the first place will get QR15,000, the second-place winner will receive QR12,000, and the third-place winner will receive QR10,000.
