Total media coverage Kutubna 2024-2025

“When I went to apply for the bookshop license, I learnt that you can't do events like author readings, book signings and writing workshops. For that, we would need a license for a cultural centre,” said Shatha Almutawa, an Emirati-Kuwaiti historian who returned to the UAE from the US in 2022 to start a bookstore and be closer to family.

Her business, the Kutubna Cultural Centre, is very much a bookstore at its core, but since marking a soft opening last year, it has blossomed into something larger.