DOHA: In its weekly session, the Qatari Forum for Authors discussed the history of the emergence of literary forms in Qatar, which were launched with local newspapers that contributed to establishing a relationship between local writers and readers and helped promote literary production.
The session was held in the Qatari Forum for Authors’ YouTube channel under the title `Read Me, I Am This Book’ initiative which was moderated by Professor of Literature and Critical Studies at Qatar University Dr Abdelhak Belabed.
During the session, important topics dealt with by author Kaltham Jaber Al Kuwari were highlighted, as she was the first Qatari woman to publish a collection of stories in 1978 that detailed how Qatari women felt at that time in light of the changes that society experienced, which led to the generation of mixed feelings.
Al Kuwari embodied the individual crisis within the local community in her various works, which revealed the paradigm shift experienced by Qatari women and the beginning of their participation in social life.
From the 1970s to the present day, the book transferred the peculiarity of society and the changes that gradually occurred in it, including changes in style and themes. The short story reached artistic maturity in the 1980s.
The short story became the dominant art in the Qatari literary renaissance and Qatari women had a strong presence in the literary field as it was the best way to express women’s issues and concerns.
Among the most prominent works is the collection of stories by Al Kuwari titled, You and Forest Silence and Hesitation’ which expressed the concerns of a generation and heralded a breakthrough for the short story due to the author’s courage in expressing the true feelings of a Qatari young woman looking for change and liberation of the mind.
The session pointed out Al Kuwari adopted a mediating style between prose and poetry, which is appropriate to the nature of the topic she dealt with and considered that her style is one of the truest, most accurate and disciplined methods of expressing human feelings. She was keen to depict the echoes of reality on herself, her feelings and her heart, which made her writings more like poems as she merged issues with her style to form an integrated artistic unit.