Riyadh: The Makkah Multiverse 1945-2009 by Raja Alem, Suleima’s Ring by Rima Bali, The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem by Osama Al-Eissa, A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji, Gambling on the Honour of Lady Mitsy by Ahmed Al-Morsi, and The Mosaicist by Eissa Nasiri have been announced as the shortlisted works for the 17th International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). The shortlist was unveiled by this year’s Chair of Judges, Syrian writer Nabil Suleiman, at a press conference in Riyadh.
Other judges included, Palestinian writer, researcher and academic Sonia Nimr, Czech academic František Ondráš, Egyptian critic and journalist Mohamed Shoair, and Sudanese writer and journalist Hammour Ziada, as well as IPAF’s Chair of Trustees Yasir Suleiman, and Prize Administrator Fleur Montanaro.
The shortlisted novelists – two women and four men – range in age from 31 to 60, and represent five countries. The authors, each with distinctive narrative styles, collectively explore a remarkably varied range of vital and timely themes.
Nabil Suleiman, Chair of the 2024 judges, said that, “The shortlisted novels offer us a profound fictional excavation of history, where the distant and more recent past and future intersect. Various civilisations and artistic forms are interwoven with their narratives. Their subjects include war, the body and family breakdown, questions of identity, oppression, cruelty, as well as individual and collective human longing for freedom and justice. With passion and perception, the novels engage with the wars, exiles and uprisings endured by the Arab world at the current moment. Their rich creative worlds are not limited to their localities but span the globe, highlighting common struggles. Their visions and aesthetic expressions are diverse, tinged with self-awareness and imaginative verve.”
The winner of the 17th International Prize for Arabic Fiction will be announced on April 28, 2024, at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi. IPAF aims to recognize excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and promote the readership of top-quality Arabic literature globally by translating and publishing winning and shortlisted novels into major languages.
Recent winning IPAF novels available or soon to be available in English include Jalal Barjas’ “The Bookseller’s Notebooks” (2021 winner, published by Interlink in December 2022) and Mohammed Alnaas’ “Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table” (2022 winner, expected to be released by HarperVia in spring 2024).