The winner of the 2018 prize is set to be announced May 22 in London. Each year, the winning team’s £50,000 prize is divided equally between author and translator(s).
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Iraq
Award-winning Iraqi Novelist and Short-story Writer Saad Mohammed Raheem, 61
Raheem also wrote political and literary theory, but he believed in the role of the novel as a tool of cultural enlightenment; this was the subject of his final tweet.
Friday Finds: An Essay Adapted from Dunya Mikhail’s ‘The Beekeeper’
“From above, it isn’t possible to see inside the houses, to recognize the lives of the inhabitants, their struggles over the little things and the big things, their movements getting slower and slower all the time. From above, the burnt fields and bewildered animals look more like an abstraction.”
Ten Years Later, ‘Contemporary Iraqi Fiction’: What Changes, What Stays the Same
“I’m as surprised as you are! There’s more interest in Vietnamese matters in the States now, so perhaps in a generation or so, Americans might be more willing to look at Iraq away from the blunders of the past.”
Faris Adnon: ‘The Kite Maker’
“There were many stories circulating in our town about Hasson, his parents, and how they ended up in the far South, but none were ever confirmed. Some said his dad met his mom in a Baha’i temple in Iran and then came to our town seeking refuge and a peaceful life, keeping their faith a secret. Others said his mom was an Armenian from the North who fell in love with Hasson’s father.”
Emily Drumsta Wins PEN Heim Grant to Translate Nazik al-Malaika’s ‘Revolt Against the Sun’
Each of the 13 winning translators will receive $2,800 help them finish their project.
Inaam Kachachi’s new novel: Iraqi History in Warm Language
In the end, I particularly recommend this novel to those who love the historical-novel genre.
Excerpt in Translation: ‘Saddam and Me and the Stockholm Syndrome’
The book “tackles Saddam’s growing posthumous popularity among thousands of young Arabs and Iraqis.”
‘Another Day in Baghdad’: Two Women Authors in Post-invasion Iraq
London-based filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi & Baghdad-based novelist Irada Al Jabbouri are raising funds to make Another Day in Baghdad, a story based in lived experience and set in Iraq’s capital in Winter 2006.
Friday Finds: An Excerpt from Dunya Mikhail’s Forthcoming ‘The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq’
“The narrow pass, surrounded by three mountains, gradually opened wider, revealing all that it had, like the generosity of its people, but sometimes it also closed in on itself, like the Yazidi religion.”
‘Serenity of the Moon’: A New Short Story by Iraqi Writer Jalal Hasan
But as soon as he mentioned what he’d done, they confronted him with their frightening eyes and silencing voices: “God is not a person, and does not resemble people.”
10 Iraqi Short Stories for the Shortest Day of the Year
“Good bye, then. You can’t understand my argument. I’m tired of what I have seen and heard from men.”
