Shortlist announced for the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction
Wednesday 4 February 2026
- The shortlist includes authors from four different countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon
- The list features 4 male and 2 female authors, with ages ranging from 37 to 69
- Three authors have been recognised by the Prize previously, with the other three celebrated for the first time
www.arabicfiction.org | #ArabicFiction2026
The Origin of Species by Ahmad Abdulatif, The Absence of Mai by Najwa Barakat, A Cloud Above My Head by Doaa Ibrahim, The Seer by Diaa Jubaili, I Resist the River’s Course by Said Khatibi and Siesta Dream by Amin Zaoui have today been announced as the six shortlisted works for the 19th International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). The winner will be announced on Thursday 9 April 2026 in Abu Dhabi.
The shortlist was revealed at a press conference at the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, Manama, Bahrain by this year’s Chair of Judges, Tunisian researcher and critic, Mohamed Elkadhi. He appeared alongside his fellow judges – Palestinian writer and translator Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Bahraini academic and critic Dheya Alkaabi, South Korean academic Laila Hyewon Baek, and Iraqi writer and translator Shakir Nouri – as well as IPAF’s Chair of Trustees Professor Yasir Suleiman, Prize Administrator Fleur Montanaro.
The shortlisted authors for IPAF’s 19th edition range in age from 37 to 69 and represent four countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon. Collectively the authors explore a diverse range of themes through distinct narrative styles and approaches to storytelling.
Three of the shortlisted authors – Najwa Barakat, Doaa Ibrahim and Diaa Jubaili – are being recognised for the first time. Ahmad Abdulatif was longlisted for the prize in 2018 with The Earthen Fortress and again in 2023 with The Ages of Daniel in the City of Threads; Said Khatibi was shortlisted for the prize in 2020 with Firewood of Sarajevo; and Amin Zaoui was longlisted for the prize in 2013 with The Goatherd, in 2018 with Leg Over Leg – in the Sighting of the Lovers’ Crescent, and again in 2024 with The Idols.
Listed in alphabetical order by author surname, the full 2026 shortlist is as follows:
Mohamed Elkadhi, Chair of the 2026 judges, said:
“The shortlist features a diverse range of narratives that delve into the depths of the human psyche, while also exploring current Arab reality and its varied intellectual currents. They journey through time to past eras, reinterpreting them to reveal hidden aspects of evolving Arab identity.
These novels illustrate the level the Arabic novel has reached, through their openness to contemporary issues and stylistic diversity. Shunning didacticism, they appeal to the evolving tastes of readers who aspire to be partners in the creative process, not merely consumers of texts.”
Professor Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said:
“The Arabic novel has developed in leaps and bounds during the past few decades, progressing under its own steam without forgetting that it is connected to world literature in terms of form and the concerns with which it abounds. The shortlisted novels for this round capture a world of intersectionalities, sometimes connecting the present to the ancient world or the culturally familiar to worlds of unfamiliarity that, in both cases, reveal continuity more than rupture. Interior voices summon the reader as engaged participant in meaning creation without suffocating him or her in over determined narration. The wide-ranging themes in the novels and different narrative stances will appeal to a swathe of publics whether in the original Arabic or in translation.”
The winner of the 19th International Prize for Arabic Fiction will be announced on Thursday 9 April 2026 at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi that will also be streamed online.
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is awarded for novels in Arabic and each of the six shortlisted finalists receives $10,000, with a further $50,000 going to the winner. It is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
The aim of IPAF is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning and shortlisted novels in other major languages. Recent winning IPAF novels which have been published or are forthcoming in English include Basim Khandaqji’s A Mask, the Colour of the Sky (winner 2024, anticipated publication in 2026 from Europa Editions), Zahran Alqasmi’s The Water Diviner (winner 2023, forthcoming publication by Hoopoe), and Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table (winner 2022, forthcoming publication by HarperVia). IPAF 2025 novels which are forthcoming in English include Haneen Al-Sayegh’s The Women’s Covenant (2025 shortlisted, anticipated publication by Interlink in 2026), Nadia Najar’s The Touch of Light (2025 shortlisted, forthcoming publication by ELF Publishing in 2026), and Iman Humaydan’s Songs for the Darkness (2025 longlisted, to be published by Interlink in 2026).
