ABHA: Asir Gov. Prince Faisal bin Khaled on Monday in Abha opened the fifth Literary Forum of Gulf Cooperation Council Countries.
The three-day forum with the participation of 50 delegates from Gulf countries has been organized by the Ministry of Culture and Information and the Abha Literary Club and will discuss various factors that influenced the region’s literature.
A participant in the event, Abdul Aziz Al-Subayyil, an undersecretary at the Ministry of Culture and Information, told Arab News the economic changes over the past two decades has brought numerous changes in the region.
“In the absence of research centers to observe such changes in the region, literary works, especially novels written by indigenous writers, have been registering the changes in the Gulf region.”
The undersecretary also noted the growing role of women in cultural and literary fields.
“Women are becoming increasingly present in areas of creativity and academic matters and most of the papers presented in the forum are by women,” he said.
The undersecretary also noted that the frequent literary meets and forums in the region have widened the avenues of communication between intellectuals in the region as is happening in the fields of science, education and media.
“The Palestinian issue is the most powerful event that fueled the creative minds in the Arab world in the 20th century,” Anwar Khalil, president of the Abha Literary Club, said.
However the independence and political developments in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Gulf countries, the economic boom also influenced the literary movements in the region, Khalil added.
Dismissing the view held by hostile critics that the cultural development in the Arabian Peninsula is the product of affluence and extravagance, he said, “the cultural achievements of the region is steeped in antiquity.”
