They are Rabia Rayhan, for his novel “Baytouna Al Kabir” (our big house) and Mohamed Heradi for “Ma’azoufat al Arnab” (The music of the rabbit), announced the organizers in a press release.
The selection of the long list was made by a jury chaired by Moroccan writer and novelist Mohamed Achaari, with members Reem Bassiouni (Egyptian scholar and novelist), Titz Rock (Swedish scholar and translator), Aziza Al-Tai (writer and Omani scholar) and Fadila Al-Farouq (Algerian novelist, researcher and journalist).
The press release also notes that the long list is made up of writers from nine Arab countries, namely Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the Sultanate of Oman, Libya, Egypt and Algeria.
The nominated novels deal with different subjects, including the experiences of immigration, exile and asylum, human relationships as well as the world of childhood and the transition to adulthood.
According to Achaari, this year is characterized by a large presence of Arab novelists and a great diversity of subjects and styles of narration. “While some stories have explored issues facing the Arab world, including Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Egypt, others have explored the historical, political, social and cultural origins of these issues,” he added.
He also pointed out that “some novels have been dominated by themes such as immigration, childhood, family, freedoms and power relations in society, while others have drawn on sources of heritage and mythology to reflect, in one way or another, our life today”.
For his part, the chairman of the board of directors of the prize, Yassir Suleiman, underlined that the long list of this edition “presents to the reader a set of novels dealing with current topics that express the concerns of Arabs in an affected world. by fragmentation and exclusion”.
He noted that this list is also characterized by the remarkable participation of novelists from the Arab diaspora in Europe and North America.
The shortlist will be selected by the jury from the novels in the longlist and announced at an event to be held on March 1 at the National Library of Kuwait, while the winner of the International Arabic Novel Prize will be announced on May 21. in Abu Dhabi.