The Historical Novel Society (HNS) and The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (DARAH) have decided to withdraw the proposed annual Saudi Historical Fiction Awards.

We intend to initiate in their place a grant scheme to support writers of English language historical fiction with Saudi settings. Further details of this scheme are to be announced.

The Saudi Historical Short Story Award ran for one year, with no entry deemed by the judges to be outstanding, but awarding 5 prizes of £1,000 each. The prize judges were Dr Ibrahim Azizi and David Rundell. The 2021 winners are announced here.

The Saudi Historical Novel Award also ran for one year, with no entry deemed by the judges to be outstanding, but awarding 2 prizes of £2,000 and one prize of £1,000. The judges were Dr Ibrahim Azizi and Katherine Clements. We are contacting the authors and will announce the winners in due course.

Here is a brief bibliography and introduction to key incidents in Saudi history.

A partnership between HNS and DARAH serves one of the founding principles of HNS, to promote historical fiction in all its forms, and one of the founding principles of DARAH, to serve the history and heritage of Saudi Arabia by helping research, access to scholarship and publication.