International Prize for Arabic Fiction reveals longlist for 2025 award

Novels from Bahrain and Mauritania are featured for the first time

Sixteen novels are competing for the 2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Photo: International Prize for Arabic Fiction

Sixteen novels are in the running for the 2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, including works from Bahrain and Mauritania for the first time.

The longlist also features novels from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Iraq and the UAE.

From a novel set in a cemetery in Baghdad that transforms the dead into butterflies, to a housemaid’s perspective of the Beirut port explosion, as well as a fictionalised biography of Al-Ghazali, the works range in subject matter, tackling different aspects of Arab identity and history.

“This year’s longlist is remarkable in its diversity of both theme and literary form,” says Mona Baker, an Egyptian academic and chair of the judging panel. The panel also includes Moroccan academic and critic Said Bengrad, Emirati critic and academic Maryam Al Hashimi, Lebanese researcher and academic Bilal Orfali and Finnish translator Sampsa Peltonen.

“Some novels address women’s struggles to achieve their dreams in a patriarchal society that prevents them from living fulfilled lives," Baker said. "Others offer a nuanced portrait of religious and sectarian worlds, where extremism and dogma contrast with human empathy and understanding.”

The Weepers by Bahraini author Aqeel Almusawi. Photo: International Prize for Arabic Fiction

The novels include The Weepers by Bahraini author Aqeel Almosawi. The work follows three generations of a family in the Shiite community of Bahrain, exploring nuances of socio-political life and religious rituals.

Algerian author Inaam Bayoud’s Houaria, meanwhile, follows a palm reader who wakes up in a hospital ward with memory loss. What Zeina Saw and What She Didn’t by Lebanese writer Rashid al-Daif explores the trauma of the 2020 Beirut port explosion through the eyes of housemaid named Zeina.

Syrian author Sausan Jamil Hasan’s novel Heiress of the Keys is set in Syria between the mid-20th century until the outbreak of the revolution in 2011. While Songs for the Darkness by Lebanese writer Iman Humaydan follows four generations of women from the Lebanese Dali family, who reside in the village of Kasura in Mount Lebanon.

The Stolen Novel by Egyptian author Hasan Kamal tells the story of a conservative Egyptian woman who re-evaluates her life after discovering her husband’s infidelity. And The Lamplighter by Egyptian writer Ayman Ragab Taher explores the sociopolitical struggles in Egypt between the latter half of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Meanwhile, The Women’s Charter by Lebanese writer Haneen Al-Sayegh explores the rural life in her Druze village in Mount Lebanon.

The Andalusian Messiah by Syrian-Palestinian author Taissier Khalaf. Photo: International Prize for Arabic Fiction

Several of the longlisted novels re-examine key moments in Arab history with a fresh perspective.

Mauritanian novelist Ahmed Fal Al Din reimagines the life of the 12th century scholar Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali in Danshmand. In The French Prisoner, Syrian-Kurdish writer Jan Dost takes cues from the true story of Pierre Amedee Jaubert, envoy of Napoleon Bonaparte to the Shah of Iran and the French leader’s translator during the Egypt campaign. The Andalusian Messiah by Syrian-Palestinian author Taissier Khalaf highlights one of the most brutal moments in Andalusian history, when Muslims were forcibly converted and interrogated by the Inquisition.

Then there are novels that delve into the fantastical and absurd, or explore the nature of perspective.

With The Valley of the Butterflies, Iraqi writer Azher Jirjees examines developments in Baghdad over the past two decades with a novel that straddles the divide between fantasy and reality, tragedy and comedy. Egyptian writer Ahmed Al-Malawany’s Happy Dreams offers a dystopian vision of an unnamed city where residents are forced to sleep. The Prayer of Anxiety by Egyptian writer Mohamed Samir Nada is set in an isolated village, where residents believe they are surrounded by a minefield.

Emirati writer Nadia Najar’s The Touch of Light features a blind narrator who uses special technology to examine the content of photographs. Syrian writer Sumar Shihada’s My Life Has Just Begun tackles themes of friendship and the illusion of love with a novel that takes place over the course of a single day.

“This longlist continues the trend of recent years of exploring the past to comment on the present from multiple perspectives,” says Yasir Suleiman, chair of the prize’s board of trustees and a professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge. “Weaving the personal and generational into narratives that unfold through anxious and troubled times highlights the slow march of social and political change in Arab society.”

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction, which is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, will reveal the six shortlisted novels on February 19 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt. The winner of the $50,000 prize will be announced on April 24 in Abu Dhabi.

Here are the 16 books in the longlist for International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2025:

• The Weepers by Aqeel Almosawi (Bahrain)
• Houaria by Inaam Bayoud (Algeria)
• What Zeina Saw and What She Didn't by Rashid al-Daif (Lebanon)
• Danshmand by Ahmed Fal Al Din (Mauritania)
• The French Prisoner by Jan Dost (Syria)
• Heiress of the Keys by Sausan Jamil Hasan (Syria)
• Songs for the Darkness by Iman Humaydan (Lebanon)
• The Valley of the Butterflies by Azher Jirjees (Iraq)
• The Stolen Novel by Hasan Kamal (Egypt)
• The Andalusian Messiah by Taissier Khalaf (Syria)
• Happy Dreams by Ahmed Al-Malawany (Egypt)
• The Prayer of Anxiety by Mohamed Samir Nada (Egypt)
• The Touch of Light by Nadia Najar (UAE)
• The Women's Charter by Haneen Al-Sayegh (Lebanon)
• My Life Has Just Begun by Sumar Shihada (Syria)
• The Lamplighter by Ayman Ragab Taher (Egypt)