Sheikh Zayed Book Award Announces 2026 Winners
Organizers at the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) today announced their 2026 winners across ten categories.
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Posts by Marcia Lynx Qualey:
Moneera Al-Ghadeer Answers: ‘Why Saudi Poetry?’
Tracing the Ether Contemporary Poetry from Saudi Arabia, ed. Moneera Al-Ghadeer, came out late last year from Syracuse University Press. The anthology brings together 26 poets responding to — and writing a new future for — a rapidly changing Saudi Arabia. Moneera answered a few questions about the collection.
Classic Short Fiction: ‘The Funeral of the Machine’
“So you are still determined to sell the three mules?”
New Poetry in Translation: ‘Obituaries’
“The city wakes up in obituaries.”
Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s ‘The Wall’
“The Wall,” by the massively popular Ahmed Khaled Tawfik (1962-2008) is from his collection “Now I Understand.”
Said Khatibi’s ‘I Resist the River’s Course’ Wins 2026 IPAF
Algerian novelist Said Khatibi’s I Resist the River’s Course was today named the winner of the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) by the prize’s judging chair Mohamed Elkadhi.
From Mohamed Abd ElGawad’s ‘A Report on the Pussycat’
“It was ridiculous, the way the battle of tuk-tuks and microbuses began.”
Rasha Omran: ‘I Want to Smile’
“I want to step out on my balcony and hang my laughter out on the clothesline, so that passersby can catch hold of it, scale the wall to the fourth floor, and laugh with me.”
From Areej Gamal’s ‘Mariam, It’s Arwa’
Areej Gamal’s Sawiris-winning novel Mariam, It’s Arwa appeared at the end of last month in Addie Leak’s translation. The titular Arwa and Mariam meet near Cairo University during the 2011 Egyptian uprising, and the encounter changes them both.