The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), often referred to as the “Arabic Booker”, has announced its 2024 longlist.
The longlist features 16 novels vying for the $50,000 cash prize, which will be awarded to the final winner in April 2024.
The 2024 longlisted novels include “Suleima’s Ring” by Syrian Rima Bali, “Foumbi” by Omani Badriya Albadri, “Eye of the Kite” by Saudi Saleh Al Hamad, and “A Mask, the Colour of the Sky” by Palestinian Basim Khandaqji.
The list also includes “Reader of the Tanners’ Alley” by Tunisian Sufyan Rajab, “The Idols” by Algerian Amin Zaoui, and “I Heard Everything” by Iraqi Sara Al Sarraf. Lebanese Rashid Al Daif is longlisted for his novel “The Other Face of the Shadow”, and Saudi Raja Alem is on the list for her novel “Bahbel: Makkah Multiverse 1945-2009” by.
The longlisted authors also include Egyptian Mohammed Abdel Nabi for his novel “Nearly Every Day”, Salha Obeid from the UAE for her novel “Spice Circle”. Another Palestinian author, Osama Al Eissa, is longlisted for his novel “The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem”.
Tunisia is also represented on this year’s list by Dorra Al Fazi for her novel “I Hide Passion”, while Egyptian author Ahmed Al Morsi is longlisted for “Gambling on the Honour of Lady Mitsy”. Algerian author Ahmed Menour is longlisted for “Storm Over the Islands”, and Moroccan writer Eissa Nasiri is on the list for “The Mosaicist”.
The themes of these novels intertwine, seamlessly navigating through different temporal and spatial world-switches that expand the fictional world. Within these narratives, readers are immersed in a flood of tales, events, memories, and conflicts centered around themes of war, exile, and the impossible love.
The novels take readers from a racecourse in 1920s Cairo to the antique book markets in Tunisia, and from ancient houses in Baghdad to a famine in 1970s Jerusalem. The books also feature customs and traditions of territories new to Arabic literature, such as the Comoros islands and the Belgian Congo.
While these novels explore the past, they firmly anchor themselves in the present, portraying history not as a fixed reality, but rather as a means to grasp the complexities of the present and to pose unanswered questions.
The longlist has been chosen from a total of 133 books, which were published in the period between July 2022 and June 2023, by a panel of five judges, chaired by Syrian writer Nabil Suleiman.
The jury members include Czech academic František Ondráš, Sudanese writer and journalist Hammour Ziada, Egyptian critic and journalist Mohamed Shoair, and Palestinian writer, researcher and academic Sonia Nimr.
