Titles

• The night post | Barid al layl (2017) – View details
• La dernière veille de la nuit (Play, 2015)
• The kingdom of this earth | Malakout hathihi al ard (2010) – View details
• Viva la diva (Play, 2009)
• My master, my love | Sayidi wa habibi (2004)
• Letters from the stranger | Rassa’ilu al ghariba (Chronicles, 2004)
• The tiller of waters | Harith al miyah (1998)
• The disciples of passion | Ahl al hawa (1993)
• The stone of laughter | Hajar al doh0k (1990)
• Visitors | Zairat (Short stories, 1985)

Biography

Barakat was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1952. She graduated with a degree in French Literature from the Lebanese University in 1975. She worked as a teacher, translator, and journalist, before moving to Paris in 1989 with her two children, towards the end of the Lebanese civil war. She has lived there ever since.

Barakat was awarded Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2002, and Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite National in 2008.

In 2011/2012 she was resident at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and in 2013, Barakat was appointed the first Arabic Scholar in Residence both at the University of Texas at Austin Middle Eastern Studies Program, and at The University of Virginia.

Hoda Barakat was shortlisted for the International Man Booker prize 2015, and received the prestigious Al Owais Cultural Award, in the Novel category, 2017-2018.

Since 2019, Hoda Barakat has been a member of the prestigious Montgomery fellowship, Dartmouth.

Her works have received several prizes: The tiller of waters was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal of Literature in 2000. It was also selected by the French book store FNAC, and by the book sellers of ‘L’arbre à lettres’. Her chronicles Letters from a stranger received the First Prize of the Biennale Internationale de Amalfi Rivi in 2007, in Italy. In 2019, her novel The night post received the International Prize of Arabic Fiction.

In the press

“The night post”

“The kingdom of this earth”

“Genius” — (Le Monde, 2012)

Cessions

• The night post (2017)

• The kingdom of this earth (2010)

Actes Sud, Sindbad (2012, France)
De Geus (2017, Netherlands)
Leopard (2018, Sweden)
Pandora (2018, Romania)

• My master, my love (2004)

Actes Sud, Sindbad (2007, France)
Bellacqua (2009, Spain)

• The tiller of waters (1998)

• The disciples of passion (1993)

• The stone of laughter (1990)

[Updated September 2022]