Encyclopedia of Modern Saudi Literature

The Encyclopedia of Modern Saudi Literature is an encyclopedia that documents the journey of literature in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia content and studies, from its inception to the celebration of its centenary in 1999. It includes selected texts and studies.

The encyclopedia consists of ten volumes with over five thousand pages. The first volume contains a general introduction to the political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of life, as well as appendices with the founding and regulatory statutes of cultural and literary institutions in the Kingdom. Each of the other volumes is dedicated to a specific literary genre.

Each volume of the encyclopedia is dedicated to a specific literary genre. While the first volume serves as a general introduction, the second volume covers poetry, the third volume covers essays, the fourth volume covers short stories, the fifth volume covers novels, the sixth volume covers biographies, the seventh volume covers plays, the eighth and ninth volumes cover literary studies and criticism, and the tenth volume includes biographical profiles of poets and authors whose texts are included in the encyclopedia, along with an index of names, sources, and references.

Each volume includes an extensive introductory section discussing the literary genre it encompassed. The texts are divided into historical stages as follows:

Beginnings Stage: From 1902 to 1923.

Founding Stage: From 1924 to 1953.

Renewal Stage: From 1954 to 1970.

Modernization Stage: From 1971 to 1999.

Several poetic and prose texts from the encyclopedia are translated, along with a general historical introduction, into multiple languages as follows: English in 2006, Japanese in 2008, French in 2009, and Russian in 2010.