The April 2023 issue of The Markaz Review is dedicated to the exploration of how Qatar’s status is purportedly growing as a cultural hub in the region. With the FIFA Cup now over, TMR seeks to further explore the country’s vast cultural ambitions of turning itself into “the art mecca of the Middle East.” In just over a century, Qatar has gone from an obscure pearl-diving , camel-herding country to one that boasts a sovereign wealth fund estimated at around $450 billion, thanks to being home to one of the world’s largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas, which has allowed it to employ large numbers of foreign workers (whose treatment it has been frequently criticized by Human Rights groups) and to bankroll its regional and global ambitions (that have not come without their own set of political problems within the region and outside of it).
TMR is looking for work from Qatar’s generation of homegrown and expat artists in fiction, essays and multimedia to explore the connection between individual experiences unfolding against the backdrop of a country’s meteoric rise onto the global stage.
Contact The Markaz Review at editor-at-themarkaz.org no later than March 10, all copy due by March 20.
Keep an eye out for The Markaz Review’s May issue, with the theme of ‘work’. Find further information here.
