Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture and Arts launched

In implementation of the Royal will of His Majesty represented in the Royal decree establishing Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature, the award launched at Crown Plaza Hotel, yesterday. The award aims at supporting the cultural, artistic and literary fields considering them as a way to emphasise the cultural and humanitarian promotion. The competition also aims to implant the values of traditions and evolvement in the upcoming generation through providing them with a perfect ambience based on the intellectual, artistic and scientific competition. The event was presided over by Dr Abdulmunim bin Mansour al Hasani, Information Minister, in the presence of Dr Ali bin Mohammed bin Moosa, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Central Bank and Chairman of the Board of the Trustee of the award and Board members. During the event, Dr Abdulmunim al Hasani also launched the award website. The chairman of the Board of the Trustees in his speech said the award aims to honour artists and intellectuals for their cultural contribution towards evolving the intellect and promoting humanitarian conscience. The award is a part of the continuous interest and Royal care of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos towards culture and its position in the Sultanate’s comprehensive development. “The award is very broad and also covers various cultural aspects like arts, literature and humanitarian sciences, and goes beyond the Omani surroundings to cover all talented people in the Arabic world,” he added. The Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature is considered to be an annual award that is granted each year. It will also be given as an appreciation award every year for both Omanis alongside with their Arab brothers. The Board of Trustees of the award is responsible for organising the process of the award’s work by specifying the majors of the award, declaring the opening date for applications and its date of closure, forming the committees of evaluation, the date of proclaiming the results and presenting the award to winners. Also the Sultan Qaboos Centre for Islamic Culture is responsible for all the award’s specialisations and its application. The award is granted for winners in the fields of culture, arts and literature where one branch of each field will be chosen in each turn of the award, so that three winners of intellectuals, artists and literature will be granted the award each year. Which means, there will be one winner in each field. The Sultan Qaboos Appreciation Award for Culture, Arts and Literature will be granted based upon the total work and achievements of the applicant, whereas the Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature will be granted upon one work only for the applicant. Applicants can apply personally or through scientific, cultural and artist institutions, and the process of evaluation will undergo a couple of procedures and general criteria, such as traditions, commitment to scientific method, innovation and evolvement, whereas other criteria are more specific and will be left for local evaluating committees in each field of the award to decide. The awards will be in three fields, the first one will be in the cultural field. It is related to the varied cultural works and writings in specialisations of human and social horizons in general, for instance language, history, heritage, philosophy, translation and intellectual studies. The second one is art field. It is related to the artist work production in its different international aspects, such as music, fine arts, sculpture, photography and painting. The third one is literature field. It is related to different literature types including poetry, novels, short story, literature critique and writing plays. The first winner of the Sultan Qaboos Appreciation Award for Culture, Arts and Literature will be granted the Sultan Qaboos Order for culture, Arts and Literature alongside a sum of RO 100,000. Secondly, the winner of the Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature will be granted The Sultan Qaboos Order for Culture, Arts and Literature alongside a sum of RO 50,000. The Board of Trustees of the Award has decided that the award — in its first turn — be merely for Omanis in areas of short story, drawing, painting and historical studies. Details will be declared through different local media streams and on the award’s website.