Thursday, January 12, 2012

Shortlist Announced for International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2012


JABBOUR DOUAIHY, EZZEDINE CHOUKRI FISHERE, RABEE JABER, NASSER IRAQ, BASHIR MUFTI and HABIB SELMI are today, Wednesday 11 January, announced as the six shortlisted authors for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2012. Their names were revealed at a press conference in Cairo, Egypt.
This year’s shortlist includes a number of different themes, ranging from exile and questions of personal identity to social and political upheaval, both historically and in the present time. Three of the authors have been shortlisted for the Prize before: Jabbour Douaihy (June Rain, 2008), Habib Selmi (The Scents of Marie-Claire, 2009) and Rabee Jaber (America, 2010), whilst Ezzedine Choukri Fishere was longlisted for the Prize in 2009 for Intensive Care.
The shortlist was announced by Georges Tarabichi, 2012 Chair of Judges, at a press conference at Cairo’s prestigious Dar al Opera. Until this point the 2012 Judges have remained anonymous but were today revealed as: Syrian writer and critic Georges Tarabichi (Chair); 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.
The six shortlisted titles were chosen from a longlist of 13, announced in November 2011, selected from 101 submissions from 15 countries across the Arab world. They are, in alphabetical order:

Title
Author
Nationality
Publisher
The Vagrant
Jabbour Douaihy
Lebanon
Dar al-Nhar
Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge
Ezzedine Choukri Fishere
Egypt
Dar al-Ain
The Druze of Belgrade
Rabee Jaber
Lebanon
Al-Markez al-Thaqafi al-Arabi
The Unemployed
Nasser Iraq
Egypt
Al-Dar al-Masriya al-Lubnaniya
Toy of Fire
Bashir Mufti
Algeria
Al-Ikhtilef
The Women of al-Basatin
Habib Selmi
Tunisia
Dar al-Adab

Georges Tarabichi comments: “In these novels the authors’ show an innovative use of new styles to describe the social and historical variety of the Arab world, as well as giving premonitions of the current peoples’ movements, displayed by the concentration on corruption and tyranny formerly prevalent in the Arab world.”
2012 marks the fifth anniversary of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Since its inception, it has become a leading cultural event in the Arab world and is respected for its unwavering commitment to independence, transparency and integrity.
At the time of the 2012 longlist announcement, Georges Tarabichi commented that, in its fifth year, the Prize ‘takes place in exceptional circumstances, with many Arab uprisings against despotic regimes which have been entrenched in most regions of the Arab world for long decades’, with many of the titles submitted ‘paint(ing) a picture of the stifling conditions prevalent before the explosion of uprisings’. The Prize prides itself in recognising the very best of Arabic fiction and, unlike any other prize in the Middle East, has the ability to bring contemporary Arab voices to an international audience through translation, especially important at these times of great change in the Arab world.
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.  It was launched in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in April 2007, and is supported by the Booker Prize Foundation and funded by the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy.
The winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2012 will be announced at an awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 27 March 2012, on the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. An English translation of the winning novel is guaranteed for the winner. All five previous winners of the prize have secured English publishing deals for their novels.

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