New website highlights Arab artistic activities and awards

The Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation has launched its website in both English and Arabic.

The new site, www.alowaisnet.org, will enable users to follow all the foundation's cultural activities.

It features a photo gallery of events the foundation has sponsored such as art exhibitions, poetry readings, discussions and musical concerts.

Through a selected link, visitors to the site can also see archive photos, showing the early activities of the Al Owais Foundation.

The website will have a biography on the late poet Sultan Al Owais and samples of his poetry.

It will also contain words of appreciation for the poet, written by many Arab intellectuals and thinkers such as Mohammad Mehdi Al Gawahri, Jaber Asfour, Suad Al Sabah, Mohammad Al Mur, Juma Al Majid and Abdul Al Gaffar Hussain among others.

The site will also include information on its awards to outstanding Arab writers and intellectuals for their poetry, stories, novels, plays, criticism and literary studies, and futuristic and humanitarian studies.

The only condition is that their work must reflect Arab thought.

The foundation gives out $500,000 (Dh1,836,372) as its top prize, with $100,000 (Dh367,274) for each winning category.

The foundation presents the award every two years. The prize information window will have information on nominations and the names of members on arbitration panels from its previous rounds.

Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Secretary-General of the Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation, said the new website was a testament to the advanced work of the foundation.

"In addition to awarding prizes, the Al Owais Cultural Foundation carries out quality activities, such as establishing a Syrian Cultural Week next October to feature discussions, theatre, music, movies and fine art exhibits," he said.

The first page of the new site contains information on the foundation, its establishment and operational system.

This page will also contain the names of prize winners and additional information along with their photographs. There were 52 winners in all fields during the last eight rounds between 1988 to 2003.

"The Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation will be an additional robust link on the internet showcasing a valued Arabic cultural prize to the world," said the secretary-general of the foundation.