• Iraqi Hiraa Al-Karkhi wins ‘Text of the Year’ award at ninth edition of iRead.
• Moroccan Fatimah Alkittani earns ‘Promising Reader’ award.
• Saudi Safiah Alghobari voted as ‘Audience’s Choice’ award by attendees.

Dhahran, 12 October 2024: In the esteemed company of Nobel laureates in Literature, present in Saudi Arabia for the first time, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) concluded the ninth edition of the iRead competition on Saturday, October 12, 2024. The two-day closing ceremony took place at Ithra, Dhahran, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, with Saudi Aramco President and CEO, Eng. Amin Hassan Nasser, and Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Corporate Services, Nabeel Abdullah Al-Jama’, in attendance. The event also featured Nobel laureates in Literature: Dr. Abdulrazak Gurnah and Olga Tokarczuk, who won the honors in 2021 and 2018, respectively. Both took the stage to deliver enriching sessions, captivating a rapturous audience with their inspiring life stories and achievements following global acclaim.

iRead Champions

Over two days, 16,000 visitors were immersed in an atmosphere brimming with intellectual excitement and anticipation as they awaited the announcement of the competition’s winners. Ultimately, Moroccan Mariam Bouaoud was named the Arab World’s ‘Reader of the Year’ by the jury. The ‘Promising Reader’ award went to 10-year-old Fatimah Alkittani from Morocco, while Iraqi Hiraa Al-Karkhi received the ‘Text of the Year’ award. The ‘Reading School’ award was granted to Tarbeat Al-Ajial International School in Hafar Al-Batin, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Safiah Alghobari won the ‘Audience’s Choice’ award. Additionally, the ‘Reading Ambassadors’ award was claimed by teacher Najla Ghazi Al-Suhaimi.

iRead: A Journey of Achievements

In her opening speech, Ithra Head of Programs, Noura Alzamil, highlighted the notable accomplishments of iRead since its founding in 2013. Over nine editions, the competition has registered over 225,000 applicants and provided around 48,000 educational hours, with the support of more than 600 speakers from 30 countries worldwide. She emphasized the transformative journey readers embarked upon, amplified by the participation of prominent Arab and international cultural figures, including three Nobel laureates in Literature who have graced Ithra’s stage. Alzamil added that Ithra continually introduces new elements to the competition, such as iRead Travels, iRead Marathon and Kutubiya Book Exchange Exhibition, expanding its role in raising a generation of Arab readers connected to literature. She also announced the launch of two new awards in this year’s edition: ‘Promising Reader’ and ‘Text of the Year’.

Culture and Language

As part of the ongoing journey of the iRead competition, panel discussions featuring several writers and poets were held on the sidelines of the ceremony, including one by Polish author and 2018 Nobel laureate in Literature, Olga Tokarczuk. She described writing as a means of saving others, asserting, “Literature and writing show the diverse paths languages have taken throughout history, with each generation cultivating its own to describe the world as they see it.” Tokarczuk further noted that culture is a complex framework connecting individual and collective languages.

Ahlam Meets Saudi Audience for the First Time

“This marks my first visit to Saudi Arabia,” said renowned Algerian author Ahlam Mosteghanemi during her session. She emphasized that today’s readers are the real heroes, stating, “Read as if you will live forever; write as if you will die tomorrow.” She also remarked that writers often doubt their most successful works, explaining that the hardest thing is to start as a great writer. Mosteghanemi concluded the session by discussing her book ‘Memory in the Flesh’, its recognition with the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and the various milestones achieved throughout her enduring literary career.

Nobel Minds on a Saudi Stage

For the first time, two Nobel laureates in Literature took the stage in Saudi Arabia for a discussion moderated by Ithra Director, Abdullah Al-Rashid. The conversation covered topics ranging from artificial intelligence and writing to the relationship between readers and their homelands. Tokarczuk expressed, “I have great appreciation for the internet, the World Wide Web and modern tools like ChatGPT. However, I am also somewhat disheartened that many once-dreamed-of innovations have been misused to cause damage.” In turn, Dr. Abdulrazak Gurnah, when asked about whether the homeland was a place or concept responded, “I have different ways of answering this question. Zanzibar is my true homeland, and I’ll say that without hesitation. But the truth is, I haven’t lived there for a very long time. If someone asks me in the UK, I’ll tell them Canterbury.”

The second day of the event continued with sessions such as ‘With Alsahood Podcast’ and a book discussion of AlMaboud. Visitors explored the Kutubiya Book Exchange Exhibition and other accompanying activities, as illustrious writers from around the globe gathered to support readers and promote the importance of reading on both the Arab and international stages.