#International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022

[arablit]

On an Award-Winning Novel & the Unstable Literary Scene in Libya

By Olivia Snaije When the Libyan writer Mohammed Alnaas won the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for his debut novel Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table (Meskliniai Publishers & Rashm, 2021) it was groundbreaking for several reasons, and not just because Alnaas was the youngest IPAF winner and first Libyan to receive the prize. As IPAF judge and novelist Iman Humaydan noted at the…

[knarsisus]

The Nation Presents: Can We Talk About Palestine?3PMPT/6PMET | Thursday, December 14

Join us on December 14th for a panel about Palestine, free speech, and censorship. Panelists Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mohammed el-Kurd, Radhika Sainath and Nathan Thrall will discuss free speech and censorship in a conversation moderated by D. D. Guttenplan and hosted by Katrina vanden Heuvel.

The legitimate parameters of debate on the Middle East have drawn far narrower amid bannings, cancellations, firings, violent rhetoric, and even prosecutions of those standing against the horrors in Gaza. Students have been doxxed and lost jobs for expressing pro-Palestinian viewpoints, writers and journalists have been banned from speaking. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen had a major New York City appearance canceled after he signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. At the same time, anti-semitic incidents have skyrocketed and many Jewish students report heightened fear and harassment. How to respond? How can we preserve freedom of speech and debate on issues where feelings run very high and people feel their identities are under attack? 

This virtual discussion will include ample time for audience questions and comments. The event is free of charge, registration is required.

REGISTER NOW

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won many awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His other books include Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction), Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America, The Refugees, and The Committed. Nguyen has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, among others. The Sympathizer is being adapted into a forthcoming TV series for HBO directed by Park Chan-wook.

Mohammed El-Kurd is the Palestine Correspondent for The Nation. In 2021, He was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine. He is best known for his role as a co-founder of the #SaveSheikhJarrah movement. His work has been featured in numerous international outlets and he has appeared repeatedly as a commentator on major TV networks. His first published essay as Palestine correspondent, "A Night with Palestine's Defenders of the Mountain," was shortlisted for the 2022 One World Media Print Award. RIFQA, his debut collection of poetry, was published by Haymarket Books in October 2021. He is the recipient of awards including the Arab American Civil Council’s “Truth in Media” Award (2022) and the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation (2023).

Radhika Sainath is a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, where she oversees the organization’s casework on free speech, censorship and academic freedom. Together with the Center for Constitutional Rights, she brought a landmark lawsuit against Fordham University after it refused to grant club status to Students for Justice in Palestine. Sainath is a frequent commentator on media outlets including MSNBC, Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera English, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Jezebel, Politico, the Village Voice and more. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Jacobin and Literary Hub.

Nathan Thrall is the author of The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. His essays, reviews, and reported features have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The New York Review of Books, and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College.

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[thaoworra]

I’ll be presenting at LITERARY BRIDGES, on May 7, 2023 starting at 2:00 PM at Next Chapter Booksellers, located at 38 S. Snelling Avenue, St. Paul.

“Well April snowstorms bring May?…” says Stan Kusunoki, co-host/curator of the Literary Bridges reading series. “…May poets, of course! This month’s roster promises a wide-ranging, yet interconnected group of writers. It will be fun to chase all the threads of connection—in other words, a classic Literary Bridges!”

The roster includes: Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Wilder (Milkweed Editions 2018), Redmouth (Tinderbox Editions 2019), and most recently, Meltwater (Milkweed Editions 2023). Her work has most recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Cream City Review, TriQuarterly, Sierra, Ninth Letter, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She was a 2020-2021 McKnight Writing Fellow, and her poem, “Glacier,” won the 2022 Montreal International Poetry Prize.

Lynette Reini-Grandell is the author of Wild Things: A Trans Glam Punk Rock Love Story, (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023) and the poetry collections Wild Verge (Holy Cow! Press, 2018); Approaching the Gate (Holy Cow! Press, 2014), winner of the 2015 Northeastern Minnesota book award for poetry. She teaches English and creative writing at Normandale Community College and the Loft and has received support for her work from the Finlandia Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. A multidisciplinary collaborator, she performs at spoken word venues with the Bosso Poetry Company and the jazz collective, Sonoglyph, and her poetry is part of a permanent installation at the Carlton Arms Art Hotel in Manhattan. She lives in Minneapolis on the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people. Bryan Thao Worra presents internationally on science fiction poetry and the Southeast Asian diaspora. He has presented at the Singapore Writers Festival, the Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival, the Library of Congress, the League of Minnesota Poets, Poets House, Kearny Street Workshop, the 2012 London Summer Games, and more. His newest collection is American Laodyssey (2023) from Sahtu Press as his community marks 50 years since the end of CIA Secret War in Laos.

Marion Gómez is a poet and teaching artist based in Minneapolis. She has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Loft Literary Center. Her work has appeared in La Bloga, Mizna, Waterstone Review, Saint Paul Almanac among others. She is a member of the Latinx spoken word collective Palabristas.

Moheb Soliman is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest who’s presented work at literary, art, and public spaces in the US, Canada, and abroad with support from the Joyce Foundation, Banff Centre, Minnesota State Arts Board, and diverse other institutions. He has degrees from The New School for Social Research and University of Toronto and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was Program Director for the Arab American lit and film organization Mizna before receiving a multi-year Tulsa Artist Fellowship and this year a Milkweed Editions fellowship. His debut poetry collection HOMES (Coffee House Press, 2021), explores nature, modernity, identity, belonging, and sublimity through the site of the Great Lakes bioregion / borderland. Moheb has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards, Heartland Booksellers Award, and others, and was showcased in Ecotone’s annual indie press shortlist and the Poets & Writers annual 10 debut poets feature. See more of his work at www.mohebsoliman.info.

[jamesmurualiterary]

Mohamed Alnaas wins International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022.

Mohamed Alnaas wins International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022.

Mohamed Alnaas was declared the winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 on Sunday, May 22, 2022. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is the most prestigious literary prize in the Arab world. Its aim is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and…

[thelegend9798]

'Bread on Uncle Milad's Table' by debut Libyan novelist wins top Arabic Fiction prize

‘Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table’ by debut Libyan novelist wins top Arabic Fiction prize

‘Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table’ by Libyan debut novelist Mohamed Alnaas was announced on Sunday as the winner of the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), reported Emirates News Agency (WAM). The award is for the best work of fiction published in Arabic between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021. For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. The novel,…

[arablit]

New Fiction: An Excerpt from Belal Fadl's 'Um Mimi'

New Fiction: An Excerpt from Belal Fadl’s ‘Um Mimi’

Belal Fadl’s Um Mimi, on the longlist for the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, unfolds in Fadl’s characteristic ironic style, following a young man who is desperate to escape the orbit of his family and enter into the world of film. As the novel opens, he is looking for a place to live in Cairo while he attends university. At first, his mother finds him an apartment with a group of…

[jamesmurualiterary]

International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 shortlist announced

International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 shortlist announced

Cairo Maquette, Mohsine Loukili, and Mohamed Alnaas are on the shortlist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 announced on March 22, 2022. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is the most prestigious literary prize in the Arab world. Its aim is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature…

[arablit]

Three Gulf Authors Make 6-book Shortlist of 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction

Three Gulf Authors Make 6-book Shortlist of 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction

Judging chair for the 2022 International Prize of Arabic Fiction, Choukri al-Mabkhout, today announced the prize’s six shortlisted novels for this year. For the first time, the shortlist included novels written by authors from the UAE and Oman. All the authors on the 2022 shortlist have been shortlisted for the prize for the first time, although they have won a number of other prestigious Arabic…

[jamesmurualiterary]

African writers on International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 longlist.

African writers on International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 longlist.

Nine writers from Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, and Morocco feature on the longlist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2022 announced today. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is the most prestigious literary prize in the Arab world. Its aim is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature…

[arablit]

Five to Celebrate International Prize for Arabic Fiction Winner Mohamed Alnaas

Five to Celebrate International Prize for Arabic Fiction Winner Mohamed Alnaas

MAY 22, 2022 — Today, International Prize for Arabic Fiction chair of judges Shukri Mabkhout announced that Mohamed Alnaas was the prize’s 2022 winner for his debut novel, Bread for Uncle Milad’s Table. Here, five pieces — fiction, memoir, opinion, an interview, and a video — to celebrate Alnaas and his novel. Fiction: An excerpt of Bread for Uncle Milad’s Table, translated by Sawad…

[arablit]

2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction Goes to Debut Novel, ‘Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table’

2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction Goes to Debut Novel, ‘Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table’

MAY 22, 2022 — At a ceremony that took place in Abu Dhabi on the eve of that city’s book fair — and was also streamed online — 2022 chair of judges Shukri Mabkhout announced that this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) went to debut novelist Mohamed Alnaas for his examination of masculinity, Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table. At 31, Alnaas is the youngest writer to win the IPAF and…

[arablit]

Mohsine Loukili: I Do Not Use the Novel to Serve History, But History to Serve the Novel

Mohsine Loukili: I Do Not Use the Novel to Serve History, But History to Serve the Novel

Moroccan novelist Mohsine Loukili’s The Prisoner of the Portuguese is one of the six novels shortlisted for the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. This conversation with Loukili will be followed, tomorrow, by an excerpt in translation from the shortlisted novel. By Leonie Rau There have been a surge of historical novels from the Maghreb, particularly Algeria and Morocco, that…

[arablit]

International Prize for Arabic Fiction Announces 16 Titles on 2022 Longlist

International Prize for Arabic Fiction Announces 16 Titles on 2022 Longlist

JANUARY 26, 2022 — Following a false start on Monday, January 24 — when International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) social media had originally promised the longlist — the 2022 IPAF longlist and judges were announced today. The longlist was chosen from amongst 122 entries. The longlisted titles were written by authors from nine countries, with three titles each by Egyptian and Syrian authors.…

[arablit]

Sarah Enany Wins 2021 Banipal Translation Prize for 'The Girl with Braided Hair'

Sarah Enany Wins 2021 Banipal Translation Prize for ‘The Girl with Braided Hair’

JANUARY 12, 2022 – Organizers announced today that Sarah Enany has won the 2021 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her translation of Rasha Adly’s novel The Girl with Braided Hair. The novel — titled شغف (Passion) in Arabic — had also been longlisted for the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. It was published by Hoopoe Fiction. The novel, chosen from among a…