Two Palestinian Novels Make 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction’s 6-Book Shortlist

FEBRUARY 14, 2024 — The shortlist of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction was announced today, at a press conference in Riyadh.

The six-book shortlist was announced by this year’s Chair of Judges, Syrian writer Nabil Suleiman, who was joined by judges Sonia Nimr, František Ondráš, Mohamed Shoair, and Hammour Ziada, as well as IPAF’s Chair of Trustees Yasir Suleiman and the prize’s administrator, Fleur Montanaro.

This year’s shortlisted titles are: Bahbel: Makkah Multiverse 1945-2009 by Raja Alem, Suleima’s Ring by Rima Bali, The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem by Osama Al-Eissa, A Mask, the Color of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji, Gambling on the Honor of Lady Mitsy by Ahmed Al-Morsi, and The Mosaicist by Eissa Nasiri.

Saudi writer Raja Alem is a former co-winner of the prize; she shared the 2011 prize with Mohamed Achaari for her novel The Dove’s Necklace, which has been translated to English by Katharine Halls and Adam Talib. She is shortlisted this year for her Bahbel: Makkah Multiverse (1945-2009).

Two Palestinian novels also made the shortlist: The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem by Osama Al-Eissa and A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji.

Khandaqji wrote short stories as a teen, until his imprisonment by the Israelis when he was 21 years old, in 2004. He continued writing in prison and published several collections of poetry, including Rituals of the First Time (2010); The Breath of a Nocturnal Poem (2013); The Narcissus of Isolation (2017), as well as novels, including The Eclipse of Badr al-Din (2019); The Breath of a Woman Let Down (2020); and A Mask, the Color of the Sky (2023).

In an interview with the IPAF organizers, Khandaqji’s brother said that A Mask, the Color of the Sky was written between June and November 2021, “in difficult circumstances.” He added, “Basim was inside various prisons, moving from one prison to another because of the arbitrary measures taken by the prison service administration. Occasionally he would lose some of the information he had collected because a prison guard destroyed it.”

With regard to his writing rituals, his brother answered, “Writing rituals? No rituals apart from writing from 5 to 7am, that is what Basim told me on one of the monthly visits which last only 45 minutes. He writes before the prison administration counts the prisoners, and before the prison guard starts making a racket, which he is adept at finding new ways of doing. In these two hours, Basim writes approximately two pages, and very often the papers are taken from him and destroyed by the guard. Here of course I don’t mean that this happens only to Basim. It happens to all the prisoners who are writing while in detention.”

The novel follows Nur, an archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah, who finds a blue identity card belonging to an Israeli in the pocket of an old coat. He adopts the mask of the occupier in an attempt to understand his oppressor. As “Nur” becomes “Ur”, he joins an archaeological dig on a settlement. Judge Sonia Nimr discussed the book at the shortlist announcement.

Also shortlisted was Osama Al-Eissa’s The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem, which is set in 1970s Jerusalem, as the inhabitants of the city suffer famine and war. In his interview with organizers, Al-Eissa said, “I wanted to present my Jerusalem. Each one of us has his own (sacred) Jerusalem. This novel is my offering to this inspiring city.”

He also added that he had no particular writing rituals. “In these circumstances in which we are living in Palestine, I don’t have such a luxury. But the most important thing, in my view, is daily writing. Reading and writing are part of my everyday life.”

Also shortlisted was Syrian author Rima Bali’s Suleima’s Ring, which unfolds across Aleppo and Toledo. The author said the idea for the novel was sparked by an encounter in a train station: “In a train station in Toledo, Spain, I noticed a ring with an unusual design lying forgotten on the rim of a washbasin. It seemed to be staring at me like a lost, frightened child, so I asked it about its mother. The answer it gave was the spark which ignited the beginning I had been waiting for, launching my boat into the love story of Selma for Aleppo and Shams al-Din, plumbing the depths of this attachment, which verges on being an incurable disease.”

Another historical novel on the shortlist is Egyptian author Ahmed Al-Morsi’s Gambling on the Honor of Lady Mitsy, which is set in early 1900s Egypt and tells the story of four people who meet at a racetrack. Al-Morsi said the inspiration for the novel “came from a question which had plagued me for a long time: what should a person do at the end of his life, when he is burdened by many unfulfilled hopes? I discovered that his freedom from the slavery of these hopes must lie in letting go of them. This is why I began the novel with the sentence ‘Fawzan al-Tahawi died without hopes.’ Fawzan is the only one of the novel’s characters who triumphs over his disappointments in life.”

The final novel on the shortlist takes us back much further: Eissa Nasiri’s The Mosaicist is set between the recent past and the second century A.D. during the Roman occupation of Morocco. Nasiri said, in his interview, that he feels a strong bond has “connected me to that delicate beauty in the transitory ruins of Volubilis.”

Each of the six shortlisted finalists will receive $10,000, with a further $50,000 going to the winner, set to be announced on the eve of the Abu Dhabi Book Fair at the end of April.

Find more about the novels at arabicfiction.org and watch the shortlist announcement on YouTube.