Tuesday, March 22, 2022 – 10:04 PM
ABU DHABI, 22nd March / WAM / The International Prize for Arabic Fiction today announced the novels nominated for the shortlist in its fifteenth session for the year 2022, which are “Cairo’s Make-up” by Tariq Imam, “Dilshad – A Biography of Hunger and Satisfaction” by Bushra Khalfan, and “Rose Diaries” by Reem. Al Kamali, “The White Line of the Night” by Khaled Nasrallah, “Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table” by Muhammad Al-Naas, and “Prisoner of the Portuguese” by Mohsen Al-Wakeili.
Each of the six shortlisted candidates will receive $10,000, and the prize winner will receive an additional $50,000. The award winning novel will be announced on May 22nd.
Shukri Al-Mabkhout, head of the jury, revealed the nominated novels, in the presence of the award’s coordinator, Fleur Montanaro.
A press conference was also held following the announcement, in which Shukri Al-Mabkhout, Fleur Montanaro and Yasser Suleiman, Chairman of the Award’s Board of Trustees, participated.
The shortlist for the 15th prize cycle includes a selection of writers between the ages of 34 and 52, from six countries. Their novels address important issues, including identity, freedom of expression, urban memory, and gender, and give a voice to the marginalized, oppressed, and forgotten in history.
The short list was chosen by a jury of five members, headed by the Tunisian novelist and academic Shukri Al-Mabkhout, who won the award in 2015 for his novel “The Italian,” and the membership of Iman Humaidan, a Lebanese writer and member of the board of directors of the International PEN Club; Bayan Rehanova, Bulgarian academic and translator; Ashour Al-Tuwaibi, physician, poet, and translator from Libya; and Saadia Mufreh, poet and critic from Kuwait.
And all the writers shortlisted for this year made it to it for the first time.
The head of the committee said regarding the short list that the committee found a remarkable diversity in the forms and topics that revolve around identity and freedom. Some novels returned to history and memory, exploring daily and interrogating human suffering and dreams in different Arab environments, depicting the endeavors of marginalized, oppressed or forgotten individuals in the course of history to make their fates and change their legendary paths.
He added that other novelists were concerned with freedom from different aspects: the freedom of imagination to reconstruct a reality in which illusion and truth overlap, and freedom of expression and creativity in the face of apparent and hidden powers that suppress thought and the freedom to choose individual identity.
For his part, Yasser Suleiman, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said: The short list for this session is distinguished by a boldness in selection that reflects a taste in line with the paths of the Arab novel during the past decade. The Arabic novel has become a form of expression that delves into worlds that explore the past and anticipate the future, with artistic tools that become increasingly professional with the passage of days. The aim of all this is to please the reader and to awaken the questions that live in his subconscious mind in a state of hibernation. We note through this list that the richness of the Arab novel is inseparable from the differentiation of the backgrounds from which the novelists enter the world of Arab narration, life and art, in addition to the diversity of cultural environments from which they weave the threads of their narrative, making them the bonds of the people of Dhad in a bond that extends from the ocean to the Gulf.
The winning novel of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction will be announced on May 22nd, in Abu Dhabi, and the event will be broadcast virtually.
Wam/ Reem Al Hajri/ Emad Al Ali
