Atef Abu Saif, Jana Elhassan,
Lina Huyan Elhassan, Shukri al-Mabkhout, Ahmed al-Madeeni and Hammour
Ziada are today, Friday 13 February, announced as the six authors
shortlisted for the 2015 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Their names
were revealed by a judging panel chaired by award-winning
Palestinian poet and writer, Mourid Barghouti, at a press conference in
Casablanca. The event was held at the Royal Mansour Hotel, in partnership with
the Moroccan Ministry of Culture and the Casablanca International Book Fair.
The shortlisted
novels are,
in alphabetical order:
Title
|
Author
|
Country of origin
|
Publisher
|
A Suspended Life
|
Atef Abu Saif
|
Palestine
|
Al-Ahlia
|
Floor 99
|
Jana
Elhassan
|
Lebanon
|
Difaf
Publications
|
Diamonds and Women
|
Lina Huyan Elhassan
|
Syria
|
Dar al-Adab
|
The Italian
|
Shukri
al-Mabkhout
|
Tunisia
|
Dar
Tanweer, Tunis
|
Willow Alley
|
Ahmed al-Madeeni
|
Morocco
|
Al-Markez al-Thaqafi al-Arabi
|
The Longing of the Dervish
|
Hammour
Ziada
|
Sudan
|
Dar
al-Ain
|
The Judges praised the
effective and creative artistic techniques with which the writers approached
their subjects. Such techniques included: adopting a flowing, quiet narrative
when rendering the intricacies of a violent history (Floor 99); the
widening, panoramic view offered of a tumultuous period of history, through a
gripping and inspiring story (The Italian); the ability of a narrator to
effectively portray the cruelties a society can inflict on its dispossessed
minority (Willow Alley); delving into the complex and hidden recesses of
a human soul which is grappling with the authority of the sacred, whether
religious or secular (The Longing of the Dervish); a writer being able to undo
fixed views by offering rich counter narratives, penetrating into the
intricacies of social realities (A Suspended Life); and, finally, the
shrewd narration that blends disparate life stories into one account of
intertwined destinies (Diamonds and Women).
One formerly shortlisted
novelist, Jana Elhassan (Me, She and the Other Women, 2013) makes the
list along with a former nadwa participant, Lina Huyan Elhassan.
The shortlisted authors are a
mixture of academics and journalists and range widely in age, with Ahmed al-Madeeni the eldest at 67
and Jana Elhassan the youngest at 30. There is one debut novelist, Shukri
al-Mabkhout, with The Italian. One of the books, The Longing of the
Dervish, was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in December 2014.
The previously
anonymous 2015 judges are: Mourid Barghouti (Chair), an award-winning
Palestinian poet and writer; Ayman A. El-Desouky, an Egyptian academic;
Parween Habib, a Bahraini poet, critic, and media expert; Najim
A. Kadhim, an Iraqi critic and academic; and Kaoru Yamamoto, a
Japanese academic, translator and researcher.
The novels selected were
chosen from 180 entries from 15 countries, all published within the last 12
months.
Mourid Barghouti, Chair of
Judges, comments: ?®Reading the 180 novels nominated for the Prize this year,
the judges observed that the thematic concerns were broadly similar. Our
objective was to identify the ability of the novelists to find artistic
solutions and fresh technical approaches to their themes. We believe that this
is reflected in the six novels announced today.?Æ
Professor
Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said: ?®The novels on this year?Æs shortlist feature a diverse range of
characters and narratives stances and styles. They are all marked with subtlety
of voice and force of vision. This list builds on the success of previous years
in bringing quality Arabic fiction to wider audiences.?Æ
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 in London and funded by
the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority in the UAE.
The winner of the International Prize for Arabic
Fiction 2015 will be announced at an awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday
6 May, the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.
Delivering
on its aim to increase the international reach of Arabic fiction, the Prize has
guaranteed English translations for all of its winners: Bahaa Taher (2008),
Youssef Ziedan (2009), Abdo Khal (2010), joint winners Mohammed Achaari and
Raja Alem (2011), Rabee Jaber (2012), Saud Alsanousi (2013) and Ahmed Saadawi
(2014).
Taher?Æs
Sunset Oasis was translated into English by Sceptre (an imprint of
Hodder & Stoughton) in 2009 and has gone on to be translated into at least
eight languages worldwide. Ziedan?Æs Azazeel was published in the UK by
Atlantic Books in April 2012, while 2013 saw the publication of Spanish
translations of Baha Taher's Sunset Oasis (El Oasis) and Rabee
Jaber's The Druze of Belgrade (Los Drusos de Belgrado) and
Youssef Ziedan?Æs Azazeel (Azazel) by Madrid-based publisher
Turner. More recently, English translations of Abdo Khal and Mohammed
Achaari?Æs winning novels both appeared on bookshop shelves in 2014, published
by the Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation.
Saud
Alsanousi?Æs The Bamboo Stalk (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing,
June) will be published in the UK in April 2015. Frankenstein in Baghdad
by Ahmed Saadawi has recently secured English publication with Oneworld in the
UK and Penguin Books in the US. It is set to be published in Autumn 2016,
translated into English by Jonathan Wright.
For
further information about the Prize, please visit www.arabicfiction.org or follow the Prize on Facebook.
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