Al-Ahsa Literary Club

Al-Ahsa Literary Club is one of sixteen literary clubs distributed across the thirteen provinces of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in addition to three governorates, Jeddah, Taif, and al-Ahsa. All these clubs operate under the Ministry of Culture in Saudi Arabia, seeking to advance the literary movement in the administrative provinces they serve and to promote culture, literature, and creativity by encouraging and nurturing young talents.

Al-Ahsa Literary Club was established in 2007, with a board of directors and a board chairman. The board initially comprised ten writers and intellectuals. In 2009, the board was re-formed, and it underwent a third re-formation in 2011 following the general assembly’s election of several members.

Al-Ahsa Literary Club strives to achieve multiple objectives, including spreading culture and literature, increasing national cultural awareness, encouraging and nurturing young literary talents, protecting the intellectual, artistic, and financial rights of writers and representing them before relevant entities, and cooperating with governmental and private entities to enhance the cultural scene in the governorate.

Al-Ahsa Literary Club offers various cultural activities that enhance the literary and cultural movement for the residents of al-Ahsa Governorate in particular, and the Eastern Province in general. These activities include organizing literary and cultural lectures, and intellectual seminars, publishing books and works, and holding poetry evenings.

The club also hosts the annual Jawatha Cultural Forum, first launched in 2009, during which several prominent literary and cultural figures in the region have been honored.

Al-Ahsa Literary Club issues several literary and cultural magazines, including al-Mushaqqar Magazine and Jawatha Magazine. The club has also presented many books printed by it, among them Watha’iq al-Ahsa fi al-Arshif al-'Uthmani by Suhail Saban (Documents of al-Ahsa in the Ottoman Archives), Sijal al-Khitabat: Qiraʾat fi al-Adab al-Sa'udi by Sahmi al-Hajri (Record of Discourses: Readings in Saudi Literature), and Mu'jam Shu'ara' al-Ahsa al-Mu'asirin (Dictionary of Contemporary al-Ahsa Poets).