At a ceremony held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut, the Minister of Culture Raymond Araygi presented the First Novel Award of the year 2016 to Pascale Saouma for her novel "Ousbou' fi AMAA al-Madina" (one week in the bowels of the city). Saouma has also received a check of 5 million Lebanese pounds offered by the foundation "Antoine Choueiri".

The Ministry of Culture is in charge of editing 2000 copies of the winning novel. The half is given to the winner while the other half will be distributed to the partner public libraries of the Ministry of Culture.

It should be noted that the selection committee decided the "non-attribution" of the Best Novel Award of the year 2016 due to the absence of the required criteria in the submitted novels.