International Prize For Arabic Fiction Announces 2025 Longlist And Judges

• This year's longlisted authors are from eight different countries, including four each from Egypt and Syria, three from Lebanon, and one from Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Mauritania and the United Arab Emirates
• This is the first time that authors from Bahrain and Mauritania feature on the list
• The age range spans 44 years, with the eldest aged 79 and the youngest 35; five women, and eleven men
• Four authors previously longlisted or shortlisted are once more celebrated, the majority are being recognised by the prize for the first time

7 January 2025:
the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), the most prestigious literary prize in the Arab world, has revealed the longlist of 16 novels in contention for the 2025 prize.

The longlist has been chosen from a total of 124 submissions by a panel of five judges chaired by
Egyptian academic
Mona Baker . Joining her on the panel are
Moroccan academic and critic
Said Bengrad ,
Emirati critic and academic
Maryam Al Hashimi,
Lebanese researcher and academic
Bilal Orfali , and Finnish translator
Sampsa Peltonen.

The selection includes three authors who have been previously longlisted by IPAF: Rashid al-Daif (2012, 2024), Sausan Jamil Hasan (2023) and Taissier Khalaf (2017), alongside one previously long- and shortlisted author, Azher Jirjees (2020, 2023 respectively). The other twelve authors feature on the list for the first time: Aqeel Almusawi, Inam Bioud, Ahmed Fal Al Din, Jan Dost, Iman Humaydan, Hasan Kamal, Ahmed Al-Malawany, Mohamed Samir Nada, Nadia Najar, Haneen Al-Sayegh, Sumar Shihada and Ayman Ragab Taher.

The full list of 2025 longlisted books, in alphabetical order by author surname, is as follows:

The novels on this year's longlist take readers from the bustling streets of Lebanon via 1980s Bahrain, to the vibrant city of Oran, Algeria. In some, reality is warped, showcasing a cemetery in Baghdad that turns the dead into butterflies, and a dystopic city where the population are artificially put to sleep. The lives of historical figures – such as Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali and Napolean's translator Pierre Amde Jaubert – are reimagined, and history is revisited, with evocative snapshots of life in Syria before the 2011 revolution and during the Morisco period in Andalusia. Societal and familial pressures are explored and interrogated, with some novels tracing the stories of generations against a backdrop of political upheaval. Across the list, a range of perspectives, values and viewpoints convey personal and collective experience.

Mona Baker, Chair of the 2025 judges, said:

“This year's longlist is remarkable in its diversity of both theme and literary form. Some
novels
address women's struggles to achieve their dreams
in a patriarchal society that prevents them from living fulfilled lives. Others offer a nuanced portrait of religious and sectarian worlds, where extremism and dogma contrast with human empathy and understanding. There are a number of historical novels on the list which deal with both the recent and more distant past, such as the Abbasid era, or the Inquisition and persecution of Muslims in Andalusia. There are also semi-autobiographical books, and others which read like detective stories. Repressive
regimes
and their power to crush the hopes and lives of ordinary people are also explored; some novelists paint a stark picture of this reality, while others employ sarcasm and humour, rendering these difficult topics more accessible for the reader.”

Professor Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said:

“This longlist continues the trend of recent years of exploring the past to comment on the present from multiple perspectives. 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. Some of the novels on the list paint a dystopian world in which every avenue is a cul-de-sac. Others reveal the oppressive force of tradition or the principled resistance to wanton attempts at knocking down well-deserved reputations. The diversity of the sixteen writers in age, gender, nationality, places of residence and length of immersion in the literary scene is a testimony to the strength and vitality of modern Arab culture.”

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is an annual literary prize for novels in Arabic, which will award $50,000 to the winner. It is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.

Key Dates:

• The six shortlisted titles will be chosen by the judges and announced on Wednesday 19th February 2025 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt.
• The winner of the prize will be announced on Thursday 24 April 2025 in Abu Dhabi.

Reflecting its mission to increase the international reach of Arabic fiction, recent winning IPAF novels which have been published or are forthcoming in English include Mohammed Alnaas's
Bread on
Uncle Milad's Table
(winner 2022, anticipated publication in 2026 from HarperVia) and
A Mask, the Colour of the Sky
(winner 2024, forthcoming from Europa Editions in 2026).
A Mask, the Colour of
the Sky
has already been published in Italian (edizione/e) and Greek (Salto) and will be published in Portuguese and Spanish.

2025 also sees the launch of IPAF's inaugural editing workshop, which aims to develop the skills of professionals in the Arab publishing world and encourage excellence in the industry. It will take place from 18-22 January in Jordan, at the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation. This follows 13 successful iterations of the creative writing workshop, or Nadwa, held in the UAE, Oman and Jordan. This initiative has seen a total of 95 authors develop their work, including Abdelouahab Aissaoui, Mohammed Hasan Alwan and Ahmed Saadawi, who all went on to win the Prize.

MENAFN07012025003092003082ID1109062586