2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction longlist unveiled

The 16-strong longlist of books contending for the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), has been revealed, featuring nine countries.

Two former prize nominees, Ezzedine Choukri Fishere and Haji Jabir, feature on the longlist. This year’s chair of judges, Tunisian novelist and academic Shukri Mabkhout, also won the prize himself in 2015 for The Italian (Dar Tanweer Tunis).

Novels in contention for the $50,000 (£37,000) award were chosen from 122 entries, all published in Arabic between July 2020 and June 2021.

The IPAF organisers said: "This year’s novels cover an extensive range of topics, from the struggle for artists to survive while facing war and state persecution, to the relationship between East and West, freedom, motherhood and gender roles. While strongly affirming the cultural and religious diversity of Arab society, they condemn those who exploit sectarian conflicts to amass ill-gotten gains. The books give African and Arab women a voice, recounting the untold stories of two such women who lived in the shadow of famous Western writers."

Egypt boasts the largest number of longlisted authors with four writers nominated: Belal Fadl’s Mother of Mimi (Dar al Mada), Ezzedine Choukri Fishere’s Farah’s Story (Dar al-Shorouk), Tarek Imam’s Cairo Maquette (Al-Mutawassit) and Mohamed Tawfik’s The Whisper of the Scorpion (Dar al-Ain). 

Syria follows with three longlisted books: Nizar Aghri’s In Search of Azar (Al Kotob Khan), Yaa’rab al-Eissa’s The White Minaret (Al-Mutawassit) and Dima al-Shukr’s Where Is My Name? (Dar al-Adab). 

Additionally, two Algerian titles are nominated in Boumediene Belkebir’s The Alley of the Italians (Al-Ikhtilef) and Rouchdi Redouane’s The Hungarian (Dar al-Ain) as well as two books from Kuwait: Khaled Nasrallah’s The White Line of Night (Dar Al Saqi) and Mona al-Shammari’s The Maids of the Shrine (Dar Al Saqi). 

Of the other five nations represented Eritrean author Haji Jabir is longlisted for The Abyssinian Rimbaud (Takween, Kuwait) while Moroccoan author Mohsine Loukili is nominated for The Prisoner of the Portuguese (Dar Mim). Reem al-Kamali from UAE is up for Rose’s Diary (Dar al-Adab) while Oman’s Bushra Khalfan is in with a chance with Dilshad (Takween, Iraq), as well as Libya’s Mohammed al-Nu’as with Bread on the Table of Uncle Milad (Rashm). 

Mabkhout, chair of the 2022 judges, said: "Submissions for the prize this year were of high quality, proving once again that the revival and development of the Arabic novel make it the best literary genre to give expression to the concerns of Arab peoples today, in their different local environments.

"The longlist chosen by the judges presents readers and those interested in the Arabic novel with a rich and varied literary feast, representing different types of fictional endeavour by Arab novelists in the past year. It stands out for its variety, wit, inventiveness, and concern with form as well as content. Some of these writers have built tight plots, demonstrating deftness in their construction, whilst others resorted to complete fragmentation, showing a clear bent for experimentation. After turning the last pages of these books, readers will be unable to forget their appealing, carefully portrayed and multi-dimensional protagonists, with their undeniable, rich humanity."

He is joined on the judging panel by Libyan doctor, poet and translator Ashur Etwebi, Lebanese writer and PEN International board member Iman Humaydan, Kuwaiti poet and critic Saadiah Mufarreh and Bulgarian academic and translator Baian Rayhanova. 

The six shortlisted titles will be announced in March, with the winner announced in May.  An annual literary prize for prose fiction in Arabic, the prize is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture & Tourism in Abu Dhabi, and was originally mentored by the Booker Prize Foundation in London.