International Prize for Arabic Fiction Announces 2025’s 16-Book Longlist

JANUARY 7, 2025 — Organizers for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), one of the most prominent prizes for the Arabic novel, today announced the year’s 16-book longlist.

The list includes just four who have previously been recognized by the prize, and twelve authors on the longlist for the first time. One is already forthcoming in translation in 2025: Iman Humaydan’s Songs for the Darkness, scheduled for publication by Interlink in Michelle Hartman’s translation.

Longlistee Jan Dost also has a novel forthcoming in English translation in 2025, his Safe Corridors, translated by Marilyn Booth and forthcoming from Dar Arab.

The most compelling story around any of the books is surely Inam Bioud’s Houwariya, which — deemed “vulgar” and “immoral” by some of its readers, and criticized for its use of Algerian Darija by others — led to publisher Dar Mim closing down in July of last year.

The complete list:

Author	Title	Nationality	Publisher
Aqeel Almusawi	The Weepers	Bahrain	Takween – Kuwait
Inam Bioud	Houwariya	Algeria	Dar Mim
Rashid al-Daif	What Zeina Saw and What She Didn’t	Lebanon	Dar Al Saqi
Ahmed Vall Ould Dine	Danshmand	Mauritania	Masciliana
Jan Dost	The French Prisoner	Syria	Dar Al Saqi
Sausan Jamil Hasan	Heiress of the Keys	Syria	Al-Rabie Publications
Iman Humaydan	Songs for the Darkness	Lebanon	Dar Al Saqi
Azher Jirjees	The Valley of the Butterflies	Iraq	Dar al-Rafidain
Hasan Kamal	The Stolen Novel	Egypt	Diwan
Taissier Khalaf	The Andalusian Messiah	Syria	Al-Mutawassit
Ahmed Al-Malawany	Happy Dreams	Egypt	Kotopia
Mohamed Samir Nada	The Prayer of Anxiety	Egypt	Masciliana
Nadia Najar	The Touch of Light	UAE	Al-Mutawassit
Haneen Al-Sayegh	The Women’s Charter	Lebanon	Dar al-Adab
Sumar Shihada	My Life Has Just Begun	Syria	Dar al-Karma
Ayman Ragab Taher	The Lamplighter	Egypt	Kayyan

The sixteen longlistees were chosen from among 124 submissions by a panel of five judges. This year’s judging panel is chaired by Egyptian academic Mona Baker, who is joined by 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 year’s longlist is full of historical novels. As organizers note, “The lives of historical figures – such as Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali and Napolean’s translator Pierre Amédée 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.”

In a prepared statement, judge Mona Baker 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 humor, rendering these difficult topics more accessible for the reader.”

The six shortlisted titles will be announced on Wednesday on February 19 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, with the winner of the $50,000 prize announced, as usual, on the eve of the Abu Dhabi Book Fair in late April.

There will likely be more about the books available on the prize’s website, arabicfiction.org, later in the day. ArabLit has a discussion between Iman Humaydan (Songs for the Darkness) and scholar Hiyem Chuerfa coming later this month.