For nearly two decades, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction has helped shape the modern Arabic literary scene.
Launched in 2007 to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic fiction and widen the international readership of Arabic novels through translation, it has become a gold standard for regional literature and a clear entry point for international publishers, translators and readers looking for new work from the region.
Each winner is guaranteed English-language publication, and the attention generated by the shortlist and longlist has also created translation opportunities for those writers too.
With Said Khatibi becoming the second Algerian to win the prize on Thursday for Swimming Against the Tide, and the English translation of 2024 winner A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Palestine’s Basim Khandaqji’s released last month, the award now has a growing library of translated novels reflecting the range of Arabic fiction over the past two decades.
Moving across countries and periods, these stories range from historical epics and political novels to intimate accounts of exile, faith, violence and memory. Read together, they offer one of the strongest guides to how Arabic literature has developed in the 21st century.
Below is a guide to International Prize for Arabic Fiction winners available in English, organised by the year they won the award.
Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher (2007)
Winner of the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008, this novel, set in the final years of 19th-century Egypt, follows Mahmoud Abdel Zaher, a government official exiled to govern the unruly desert oasis of Siwa, and his wife, Catherine, an Irish Egyptologist determined to trace the path of Alexander the Great.
Told through many viewpoints, including those of tribal leaders and Alexander himself, Taher delivers a masterful work illustrating how Egypt has long been a meeting point of cultures and trade.
Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan (2008)
A respected historian, Youssef Ziedan surprised the Arab literary world with this gripping and accessible historical novel.
Set in 5th-century Egypt, Azazeel is framed as the recently discovered memoir of the Egyptian monk Hypa. The story follows his journey from Upper Egypt to Syria, where he encounters forces that challenge both his spirituality and moral convictions, embodied in the novel’s enigmatic title character. Blending elements of murder mystery with philosophical reflection, Azazeel delivers a compelling narrative and a sharp critique of how religion can be manipulated by power.
Throwing Sparks by Abdo Khal (2010)
Winner of the 2010 Ipaf award, Saudi author Abdo Khal sets this pensive and at times violent novel in 1980s Jeddah, a city in the grip of a powerful tycoon known as The Master.
As a lowly employee in his palace, Tariq is forced to film the sadistic acts The Master inflicts on his enemies, a task that triggers a crisis of conscience and faith. An unsettling meditation on the corruptive power of wealth, Throwing Sparks remains one of the boldest novels to emerge from the kingdom and a cautionary tale for a Saudi Arabia undergoing change.
The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari (2011)
The 2011 winner, The Arch and the Butterfly is an exploration of ideological disillusionment and generational rupture in contemporary Morocco. Told across three generations, the novel tracks three characters’ experiences with exile and return, and the disappointment laced within them.
It eventually explores the third generation’s complete disillusionment, which leads the grandson of the first character to leave behind an architecture career to join the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Achaari, a former Minister of Culture and an accomplished poet, writes with lyrical precision and insight, tracing the emotional wreckage of a family undone by historical forces beyond its control.
The Dove’s Necklace by Raja Alem (2011)
In the award’s only tie to date, Saudi novelist Raja Alem shared the 2011 prize with Mohammed Achaari. The Dove’s Necklace offers a view of Makkah far removed from its spiritual symbolism, turning instead to its gritty, history-filled alleyways and hidden local worlds. Beginning with a murder in the historic Umm Al Nar quarter, Alem makes one of the city’s streets the narrator. The investigation that follows exposes Makkah’s social undercurrents, including community tensions and patriarchal pressures.
The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi (2013)
Great literature is bold, and Saud Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk is one of the most fearless in the Kuwaiti literary canon. Following a young man with a Kuwaiti father and Filipino mother, Alsanousi’s award-winning novel tackles hybrid identity struggles with unflinching clarity.
While the novel is pointed in its societal criticisms, it is also searching and contemplative, addressing taboos of race, class and religion through a personal and existential lens. Don’t let the simplicity of its prose fool you, this is a book with a lot on its mind.
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (2014)
Frankenstein in Baghdad is perhaps the most popular piece of fiction to have emerged from Iraq in the 21st century, and for good reason. The novel is a searing examination of sectarian violence that has distorted Iraqi society following the US invasion in 2003.
It features a panoply of characters, including a journalist, an astrologer, a brigadier, a dealer of discarded objects and an elderly woman living alone with her cat. The novel’s star character, however, is its titular monster, named Whatsitsname, who is made from body parts of people who have been killed in terrorist attacks.
The novel was internationally praised for its deft use of horror and fantasy to explore the tragic and ineffable aspects of contemporary Iraqi society.
The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout (2015)
Shukri Mabkhout was already a respected cultural figure when he sat down to write The Italian. He was president of a prominent university and was well known as a translator, columnist and literary critic. But no one expected him to craft a book quite like The Italian, which is inspired by the backlash that came after the Tunisian uprising in 2011.
Chronicling a character’s political and romantic adventures during the crossover between two political regimes, the novel brings to life vividly drawn characters as they attempt to navigate a society in tumult.
Fractured Destinies by Rabai Al-Madhoun (2016)
Fractured Destinies by Rabai Al-Madhoun is written in four parts, each representing a concerto movement. The novel focuses on the different aspects of Palestinian experiences. It highlights the daily struggles and tragedies of Palestinians in their homeland, while also delving into the experiences of Palestinians in exile, who are trying to return to their homeland, as well as those living under occupation and forced to assume Israeli citizenship.
The novel tackles the historical context of the conflict as well, examining events from the 1948 Nakba onwards. In that sense, Fractured Destinies is a nuanced novel that offers insight into the breadth of the Palestinian struggle.
Ibn Arabi’s Small Death by Mohammed Hasan Alwan (2017)
An epic fictional account of the Sufi mystic Muhyiddin Ibn ’Arabi, the novel by the Saudi author traces his life from his birth in 12th-century Muslim Spain to his death in Damascus. The novel follows his travels across several countries and his search for four aqtab, spiritual guides, one of whom is a woman he loves. While the historical backdrop is compelling, Ibn Arabi’s A Small Death soars when exploring Ibn ’Arabi’s inner journey and spiritual struggles.
Voice of the Lost by Hoda Barakat (2019)
An epistolary novel that brings the marginalised to the fore, it follows a seemingly unrelated cast of characters bound by dislocation. Some are exiles and migrants, others are homeless, and through their letters their lives gradually begin to converge.
The novel won the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, making Hoda Barakat the first woman to win the award outright.
The Bookseller’s Notebooks by Jalal Barjas (2021)
Winner of the 2021 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, The Bookseller’s Notebooks is set in Jordan and Moscow between 1947 and 2019.
It tells the story of Ibrahim, a bookseller and voracious reader, who loses his shop and finds himself homeless and having had schizophrenia diagnosed. He begins to assume the identity of the protagonists of the novels he loved and commits a series of crimes, including burglary, theft and murder. He then attempts suicide before meeting a woman who changes his perspective on life.
The novel is structured as a series of notebooks and has many narrators, whose fates sometimes collide. The Bookseller’s Notebooks is a heart-rending, fragmented tale of people who are ignored and overlooked by society. Barjas’s work daringly depicts a difficult reality not only in Jordan, but the Arab world as a whole.
A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji (2024)
A Mask, the Colour of the Sky follows the life of Nur, a Palestinian archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah. On finding a blue identity card belonging to an Israeli citizen in the pocket of an old coat, Nur takes on the life of the card’s namesake in an attempt to understand life behind the security fence.
The premise is an innovative way of examining the self, the other and the world, while also highlighting the displacement, genocide and racism that Palestinians have endured under Israeli occupation.
