AlMultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story has announced their 2019 longlist, made up of 10 short-story collections by authors from eight different countries:
The ten longlisted collections:
Burning the Loaf, by Saudi writer Wafaa Al Harbi
The Burning Earth, by Jordanian writer Sahar Yassin Malas
The Last Hour, by Tunisian writer Sufian Rajab
Order C345, by Palestinian writer Sheikha Hussein Halwi
Dark, by Iraqi writer Saad Hadi
An Ongoing Coincidence, by Libyan writer Najwa Bin Shatwan
Munch’s Scream, by Omani writer Mahmoud Al Rahbi
A Shirt Being Ironed by Two Women, by Egyptian writer Ahmed El Derini
Furthermore, by Iraqi writer Burhan Mufti
The City Eats Itself, by Egyptian writer Sherif Saleh
Several of the authors have been recognized by other prizes; El Derini won the Mohammed Hassanein Heikal Award for Arab Journalism for 2017 while Najwa Ben Shatwan’s Zareeb Al-Abeed was shortlisted for the 2017 International Award for Arabic Fiction.
According to Almultaqa organizers, 209 eligible collections were submitted to the prize, with the most (80) coming from Egypt. The entries came from a total of 22 countries, which also included Saudi Arabia (19), Iraq (18), Syria (14), Morocco (12), Jordan (10) 7, Yemen (6), UAE (5), Oman (4), Kuwait (4), Libya (2) and Iran, Sudan, Lebanon, France, Ukraine, Belgium, the USA, and Canada.
The 2019 jury is made up of Spanish translator-scholar Luis Miguel Perez Canada, who is the chair of judges; Egyptian academic Said Al-Wakil; Jordanian author Rami Abu Shehab; Moroccan critic Abdel Razzaq Al-Mesbahi; and Kuwaiti novelist Basima al-Enezi.
The 2019 shortlist is set to be announced at the beginning of November, and the winner at the beginning of December.
The prize has had three winners thus far: Mazen Maarouf’s Jokes for the Gunmen, which made the 2019 Man Booker International longlist in Jonathan Wright’s translation, Shahla Ujayli’s Bed of the King’s Daughter, and DIaa Jubaili’s No Windmills in Basra. One of the stories from No Windmills appears in the Winter/Spring 2019 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, in Yasmeen Hanoosh’s translation.
You can also read a story from Bin Shatwan’s longlisted collection in this month’s issue of Words Without Borders, “Run, George, Run,” translated by Sawad Hussain.
