A fair for all tastes

Amid many titles available at the 27th Muscat International Book Fair, the presence of various organisations is a value addition to the annual event.

The Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Literature and Art is one such participant, which is taking part in the book fair with books featuring the winners of the prestigious award. It has its stall right at the entrance of the exhibition.

Fatma al Mamari, Head of Cultural Relations at Sultan Qaboos Higher Centre for Culture and Science, is seen explaining to the visitors. The award grants the first winner a cash award of RO 50,000.

“Participation criterion rotates alternate years — one year for Omanis and the next year for Omanis and Arabs. There are categories for the people to participate,” explained Fatma.

Every year the award committee takes entries for three fields.

“For example, one field could be drama, another novel and third literature for children. Yet another category could be fiction. So each year, the list of fields varies,” she pointed out.

There is also an international committee to nominate the nominees, and the announcement of the award is made via television and social media to encourage people to participate.

The committee chooses the winners from each field, and then there is an announcement followed by a celebration.

The books on display are all about the winners from the inception of the award in 2011 until 2022.

For 2023, the fields announced are intercommunications and media, novels and director of cinema. After the official announcement of the award categories, candidates can submit their work. The winners are announced in December every year.

The books on display are not for sale, but the Sultan Qaboos Higher Centre for Culture and Science magazine is available for distribution. The contributors to the magazine are Omanis and others living in Oman, and the topics addressed are culture, economy, education, arts, literature and place of interest in Oman. It is an annual publication and is released at the book fair. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the cultural magazine’s distribution was halted for three years. It is back after three years, and all the previous issues are available at the book fair this year.

Dar al Luban is a publishing house that follows the objective of promoting Omani writers with great passion.

According to Al Aathra al Rahbi, this year, Dar al Luban is participating in the book fair with more than 150 new books in addition to their previous collections.

“About 95 per cent of our books are by Omanis and just about 5 per cent by non-Omani authors. The topics vary from the story, medicine, other educational books, travel etc.” Al Aathra said.

The bookstall has a book-signing corner. Every evening during the ten days of the book fair, authors will be present for the signing of their books.

Every day the Government Communications Centre features new books by Omani authors and features them in time-lapse videos promoting the authors at the same time, making it easier for the public to access the books.

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for more details.

@lakshmioman