Today's Edition
ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)
“The Origin of Species” by Ahmad Abdulatif, “The Absence of Mai” by Najwa Barakat, “A Cloud Above My Head” by Doaa Ibrahim, “The Seer” by Diaa Jubaili, “I Resist the River’s Course” by Said Khatibi and “Siesta Dream” by Amin Zaoui have been announced as the six shortlisted works for the 19th International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF).
The winner will be announced on April 9 in a ceremony in Abu Dhabi which will also be streamed online.
The shortlist was revealed at a press conference at the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, Manama, Bahrain by this year’s Chair of Judges, Tunisian researcher and critic, Mohamed Elkadhi.
He appeared alongside his fellow judges – Palestinian writer and translator Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Bahraini academic and critic Dheya Alkaabi, South Korean academic Laila Hyewon Baek, and Iraqi writer and translator Shakir Nouri – as well as IPAF’s Chair of Trustees Professor Yasir Suleiman, Prize Administrator Fleur Montanaro.
The shortlisted authors range in age from 37 to 69 and represent four countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon.
Three of the shortlisted authors – Najwa Barakat, Doaa Ibrahim and Diaa Jubaili – are being recognised for the first time.
Mohamed Elkadhi, Chair of the 2026 judges, said the authors employed distinct narrative styles and approaches to storytelling.
“The shortlist features a diverse range of narratives that delve into the depths of the human psyche, while also exploring current Arab reality and its varied intellectual currents. They journey through time to past eras, reinterpreting them to reveal hidden aspects of evolving Arab identity,” he said.
“These novels illustrate the level the Arabic novel has reached, through their openness to contemporary issues and stylistic diversity. Shunning didacticism, they appeal to the evolving tastes of readers who aspire to be partners in the creative process, not merely consumers of texts.”
Professor Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said, “The Arabic novel has developed in leaps and bounds during the past few decades, progressing under its own steam without forgetting that it is connected to world literature in terms of form and the concerns with which it abounds.
“The shortlisted novels for this round capture a world of intersectionalities, sometimes connecting the present to the ancient world, or the culturally familiar to worlds of unfamiliarity that, in both cases, reveal continuity more than rupture.
“Interior voices summon the reader as engaged participant in meaning creation without suffocating him or her in overdetermined narration. The wide-ranging themes in the novels and different narrative stances will appeal to a swathe of publics, whether in the original Arabic or in translation.”
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is awarded for novels in Arabic, and each of the six shortlisted finalists receives $10,000, with a further $50,000 going to the winner.
The competition is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
The aim of IPAF is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning and shortlisted novels in other major languages.
