International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2016

The winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2016 (IPAF) will announced at ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 26 April 2016. The announcement will be followed by a post-ceremony press conference with the 2016 winner at the same venue.

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. The winner is guaranteed an English translation of their book.

The Prize was launched in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in April 2007, and is supported by the Booker Prize Foundation in London and funded by the TCA Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

The 2016 shortlist, with author names in alphabetical order, is as follows:

• Numedia by Tareq Bakari (Morocco)

The story of a Moroccan intellectual searching for identity through a series of relationships.

• Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba by Rabai al-Madhoun (Palestine)

A pioneering novel, written in four parts – each representing a concerto movement – on the subject of Palestinian life both in occupation and exile.

• Mercury by Mohamed Rabie (Egypt)

A dystopian imagining of “the counter revolution" in Egypt, set in a nightmarish future where the police battle against a mysterious occupying power.

• Praise for the Women of the Family by Mahmoud Shukair (Palestine)

The story of the Al-Abd al-Lat tribe, former Bedouins whose women play a vital role in integrating the family into urban Palestinian society during the 1950s.

• A Sky Close to Our House by Shahla Ujayli (Syria)           

Memories of Syria’s past and times of tolerance and simple pleasures from the viewpoint of a Syrian woman now living in exile in Amman after her town, Raqqa, is occupied by ISIS.

• The Guard of the Dead by George Yaraq (Lebanon)

A new perspective on the Lebanese Civil War through the eyes of a hospital undertaker, whose former life as a mercenary puts his life in danger.

For further information about the Prize, please visit www.arabicfiction.org or follow the Prize on Facebook