The Al-Mutaifi Literary Salon announced the victory of Tunisian writer Ibrahim Al-Rihawi in the fourth edition of the Asma Sadik Award for the First Novel, after competition between 675 works that participated in this year's award, launched by the Al-Mutaifi Literary Salon in cooperation with Dar Al-Adab. The Salon also announced the opening of submissions for the fifth edition of the award. The founder and chairperson of the Al-Mutaifi Literary Salon, Asma Sadik Al-Mutaui, said: "The fourth edition reflected a high level of interaction and growing confidence in the award, and the great turnout and quality of the participating texts confirmed the vitality of the Arab literary scene." This year, the shortlist included three novels: 'The Unlived Version' by Ibrahim Al-Rihawi (Tunisia), 'About Jabbar Who...' by Muhammad Kazim (Iraq), and 'Baghdad Without Windows' by Heba Al-Shamri (Iraq). The Tunisian novel won unanimously by the two juries. The winner will receive a cash prize of $10,000, and the novel will be published in Arabic in cooperation with Dar Al-Adab, which will also handle its translation and publication in English. As part of its activities for the Month of Reading in the country, the Al-Mutaifi Literary Salon launches the 'We Read with Impact' project as an interactive platform that promotes conscious reading and transforms it from an individual act into an extended dialogue. The initiative calls on readers to communicate with the Al-Mutaifi Salon through its social media platforms to share an inspiring idea or a deep impact left by a book they read, which builds a reading community that exchanges knowledge and experience. On the occasion of the Year of the Family, the Salon also launches the 'Reading Between Generations' initiative, aimed at documenting and strengthening family bonds through the act of shared reading. The initiative brings together grandparents, parents, and grandchildren around a book that has been read, with each generation sharing its vision and impact from it, in a scene that celebrates the continuity and transfer of knowledge, and establishes reading as a living bridge connecting the past with the present, creating a shared family memory.
