Stories about exile, identity and lives shaped by political rupture will reach an expanded reader base this year, with a number of key Arabic novels being translated into English across 2026.
These works include prize-winning titles alongside books by established authors and emerging voices, ranging from multigeneration family narratives to tightly focused meditations on loss and exile.
Often released by specialised publishers and carried into the English by dedicated translators, the books reflect the growing visibility of contemporary Arabic fiction. Below are six translations set to be published this year, with some release dates yet to be announced.
1. A Mask the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji (March 17)
Imprisoned Palestinian author Basim Khandaqji won the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel, which was written while he was serving three life sentences in an Israeli prison.
Khandaqji was arrested by Israeli authorities in 2004 on terrorism charges and later convicted of planning and participating in a bombing at Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market that killed three people and injured dozens more.
A Mask the Colour of the Sky follows the life of Nur, a Palestinian archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah. When he discovers the blue identity card of an Israeli citizen in the pocket of an old coat, Nur assumes the life of the card’s namesake in an attempt to understand existence on the other side of the security fence.
Syrian writer Nabil Suleiman, known for his epic four-part 2012 novel Orbits of the East and chairman of that 2024 Ipaf judging panel, hailed the work for its multilayered narrative.
“A Mask the Colour of the Sky fuses the personal with the political in innovative ways. It ventures into experimenting with new narrative forms to explore three types of consciousness – that of the self, the other and the world,” he said as part of the winner’s announcement. “It dissects a complex, bitter reality of family fragmentation, displacement, genocide and racism.”
Released by Europa Editions, the novel is translated by Addie Leak, who previously co-translated 2018's For an Ineffable Metrics of the Desert by Moroccan author Mostafa Nissabouri.
2. Notes from a Lost Country by Sinan Antoon (April 2)
Iraqi novelist and translator Sinan Antoon’s work, first published in Arabic in 2023, examines the emotional erosion of a life spent in exile. The novel, to be translated by Antoon himself, follows the relationship between two Iraqi men living in the US: one a retired doctor grappling with dementia, the other a newly arrived young man who fled the Iraqi army.
To be published by Saqi Books, Notes from a Lost Country will join Antoon’s other English-language novels, including The Baghdad Eucharist and Of Loss and Lavender.
3. Dreams of Ayn Ara by Sara Abou Ghazal (August 18)
Palestinian novelist Sara Abou Ghazal presents a multi-voiced narrative centred on the Abu Sakkar family, who live in the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon. Moving across generations, the novel allows each character to share their experiences of lives shaped by displacement following the Nakba.
Out this year through Feminist Press, the English translation is by Katharine Halls, whose effort on the seminal Saudi novel A Dove’s Necklace by Raja Alem won the 2017 Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation.
4. Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table by Mohammed Alnaas
Winner of the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the novel made Mohammed Alnaas the first Libyan writer to receive the prestigious award and guaranteed funding for an English translation.
Set in a small Libyan town, the novel follows Milad, a man whose enjoyment of cooking and domestic work places him at odds with deeply entrenched ideas of masculinity. What begins as a private way of life slowly turns into a public ordeal, as neighbours, relatives and acquaintances close ranks around rigid social expectations.
Professor Yasir Suleiman, the 2022 chairman of the Ipaf award’s board of trustees, praised Alnaas’s literary flair and his ability to showcase the dynamism of the Arabic language. “Sometimes wistful, but always lyrical, the narrative succeeds in evoking a conflicted cultural fabric that fuses time with place in a Libyan milieu that speaks to and for Arabs everywhere,” he said.
According to the Ipaf website, Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table is slated for release this year and translated by Sawad Hussain, whose work on What Have You Left Behind? by Yemeni author Bushra Al Maqtari was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
5. Mariam, It’s Arwa by Areej Gamal
Mariam, It’s Arwa marks the English-language debut of Egyptian novelist Areej Gamal, introducing a work set amid the social and political aftershocks of Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
The novel follows Arwa, a young woman navigating both the end of a relationship and the loss of the Egypt she once knew, as she reassesses what lies ahead and negotiates the new fissures shaping her homeland.
Winner of the 2021 Sawiris Cultural Award for Young Writers, the English translation by Addie Leak is published by the American University in Cairo Press.
6. The Sleep Thief by Ibtisam Azem
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is told through the life of a Palestinian man from Haifa who lives in Jerusalem in this sprawling novel, first published in 2011. Juxtaposing his experience, Palestinian novelist Ibtisam Azem examines how unjust power structures and rabid politics shape everyday personal lives, even as the conflict itself remains largely offstage.
"It is a novel about internal alienation and the trials of a young Palestinian man who feels exiled in his own homeland. The novel delves deep into his Kafkaesque world as he tries to liberate himself from settler colonialism and patriarchy," Ms Azem told The National.
Published in English by And Other Stories in the UK, the novel was translated by Sinan Antoon.
