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Previously shortlisted Lebanese writer wins 2012 Prize
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2012 marks Prize’s fifth anniversary year
The Druze of Belgra
de by
Rabee Jaber has tonight, Tuesday 27 March 2012, been announced as the winner of
the fifth International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The winner was named at a
prize ceremony in Abu Dhabi by this year’s Chair of Judges, the Syrian writer
and critic Georges Tarabichi.
This is the second time the Lebanese writer has been shortlisted for the
Prize, having been previously nominated in 2010 for his novel America.
His winning book, The Druze of Belgrade, is an historical novel about a
man whose life is turned upside down by a cruel twist of fate. The novel opens
in 1860s Beirut, just after the Civil War in Mount Lebanon. Hanna Yacoub, a
Christian egg seller, has the false identity of a fighter from
the Druze community forced upon him and
is sent into exile along with a group of Druze fighters. The book chronicles
his 12 years of imprisonment and the untold suffering he experiences in
Belgrade and other parts of the Balkans. The Judges praised the novel for its
powerful portrayal of the fragility of the human condition through the
evocation of a past historical period in highly sensitive prose.
Georges Tarabichi, Chair of Judges, commented: “After prolonged discussion, the panel of Judges of the
fifth year of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction eventually agreed to
award the Prize to The Druze of Belgrade by Rabee Jaber. Had the rules
of the Prize allowed there to be more than one winner, we would have nominated
all six novels on the shortlist as Prize winners.”
This year’s winner was selected from a shortlist of
six books, noted below, and announced in Cairo earlier this year by the 2012
Judging Panel. Georges Tarabichi was joined on the panel by four other Judges: Lebanese journalist and literary critic
Maudie Bitar; Egyptian academic and women's rights activist Professor Hoda Elsadda; Qatari writer and academic Dr Huda
al-Naimi; and Spanish academic translator and researcher Dr
Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla.
As well as winning 50,000 US Dollars, Rabee Jaber is guaranteed an English translation of his novel, as well as
increased book sales and international recognition. In the past five years, all
winners of the Prize have secured English publishing deals for their novels,
with three former winners – Youssef Ziedan, Abdo Khal and Mohammed Achaari - to
be published in English in 2012.
Jonathan Taylor, the Prize’s Chair of Trustees, commented:
“This is an important year for the Prize; after five successful years,
our 2012 winner is announced tonight. We can be proud that, over this period,
we have brought recognition and reward to outstanding Arabic literary fiction.
I am also glad that, through translation, we are bringing wider international
readership to the winners and many shortlisted writers.”
Salwa Mikdadi, Head of the Arts and Culture Programme at the Emirates
Foundation, added: “The Emirates Foundation is proud to be the entity which
funds the Prize and was instrumental in its establishment. For the past five
years, the Prize has positioned itself as an important addition to the literary
scene in the region and worldwide, particularly among young writers, which has
clearly been reflected in this edition’s longlist.”
2012 marks the fifth anniversary of the International Prize for Arabic
Fiction. Since its inception, it has become the leading international Arabic
literary prize and is respected for its unwavering commitment to independence,
transparency and integrity. The Prize is supported by the Booker Prize
Foundation and funded by the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy.
The
International Prize for Arabic Fiction is awarded for prose fiction in Arabic
and each of the six shortlisted finalists receives $10,000, with a further
$50,000 going to the winner. For further information about the Prize, please
visit www.arabicfiction.org or
follow the prize on Facebook.
THE
WINNER
The Druze of Belgrade
Published
by Al-Markez al-Thaqafi al-Arabi
After
the 1860 Civil War in Mount Lebanon, a number of fighters from the religious
Druze community are forced into exile, travelling by sea to the fortress of
Belgrade on the boundary of the Ottoman Empire. In exchange for the
freedom of a fellow fighter, they take with them a Christian man from Beirut
called Hanna Yacoub; an unfortunate egg seller who happens to be sitting at the
port. The Druze of Belgrade follows their adventures in the Balkans, as
they struggle to stay alive.
Lebanese
novelist and journalist Rabee Jaber was born in Beirut in 1972. He has
been editor of Afaq, the weekly cultural supplement of Al-Hayat
newspaper, since 2001. His first novel, Master of Darkness, won the
Critics’ Choice Prize in 1992. He has since written 16 novels, including Black
Tea, The Last House, Yousif Al-Inglizi, The Journey of the
Granadan (published in German in 2005), Berytus: A City Beneath the
Earth (published in French by Gallimard in 2009) and America, which
was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010.
ABU
DHABI INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR
The
2012 winner announcement took place on the eve of the Abu Dhabi International
Book Fair 2012. Rabee Jaber will take part in his first public event at the
book fair on Wednesday 28 March, and there will also be an audience with some
of the shortlisted finalists. Details as follows:
Meet the winner of IPAF 2012
Venue: Discussion Sofa, Hall
12K50, Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADNEC
Date: Wednesday 28 March 2012
Time: 8-9pm
Host: Dr Maan Al Taie
Arabic Fiction Taking Risks: a conversation between
the shortlisted authors of IPAF 2012
Venue: Discussion Sofa, Hall 12K50, Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADNEC
Date: Thursday 29 March 2012
Time: 8.15-9.30pm
Host: Dr Maan Al Taie
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