For the year’s “Best Arabic Novel Award,” judges at the Sharjah International Book Fair chose Kuwaiti novelist Abdullah al-Busais’s The Taste of the Wolf (2016):
The novel is set in the desert, and the wolf is both character and metaphor for the behaviors of men.
يبارك نادي فصيح للروائي الكويتي عبدالله البصيص فوز روايته #طعم_الذئب بجائزة أفضل رواية عربية في #معرض_الشارقة_الدولي_للكتاب 2017 pic.twitter.com/6GCbD0Gfcr
— نادي فصيح (@faseeh_club) November 4, 2017
The winning book, according to the prize guidelines, must be “new and unique in its field” and not have won a previous literary award. Despite being well-received and reviewed, The Taste of the Wolf did not make the International Prize for Arabic Fiction longlist.
The novel was banned in Kuwait, according to Kuwaiti novelist Bothayna al-Essa, because it contains words like “pee,” as the protagonist pees down his leg. Al-Busais’s previous novel, Stray Memories, was also banned.