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2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction shortlist announced

Monday, 24 February 2025   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The committee for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) has announced its 2025 shortlisted titles, chosen from a longlist of 16.

Shortlisted titles include:

  • The Andalusian Messiah (Taissier Khalaf, Syria, Al-Mutawassit)
  • Danshmand (Ahmed Fal Al Din, Mauritania, Masciliana)
  • The Prayer of Anxiety (Mohamed Samir Nada, Egypt, Masciliana)
  • The Touch of Light (Nadia Najar, United Arab Emirates, Al-Mutawassit)
  • The Valley of the Butterflies (Azher Jirjees, Iraq, Dar al-Rafidain)
  • The Women’s Charter (Haneen Al-Sayegh, Lebanon, Dar al-Adab).

The author of each shortlisted title receives US$10,000 (A$15,735), while the overall winner will receive a further US$50,000 (A$78,678).

Mona Baker, chair of the 2025 judges, said: ‘This year’s six shortlisted novels are notable for their focus on the humanity of their protagonists, whether it be a Druze woman in a 21st-century Lebanese village (The Women’s Charter), or the Islamic cleric Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad Al-Ghazali in the 12th century (Danshmand). They depict human journeys, such as that of a young blind woman exploring her four senses in The Touch of Light, and the journey of the Andalusian Issa or Jesús searching for his mother’s killer in The Andalusian Messiah, blending reality and imagination, and mixing tragedy with comedy. In The Valley of the Butterflies, the main character uses sarcasm as a weapon to confront tragic reality; while in The Prayer of Anxiety, the individual figures can also be viewed as political or social symbols, and the novel’s lifelike scenarios can be interpreted on many different levels.’

The IPAF ‘aims to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning and shortlisted novels in other major languages’.

The 2025 winner will be announced 24 April, ahead of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Last year’s winner was A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Palestinian author Basim Khandaqji (Dar al-Adab).

 

Category: International news