Hoda Barakat wins the Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais prize, in the Novel category. The prize will be given to her during a ceremony in Dubai, in March 2018.
The very prestigious prize has been given in the past to major Arab artists, intellectuals and writers such as Sa’ad Allah Wanous, Abdul Rahman Mouneef, Nizar Qabbani, Edward Al Kharrat, Jamal Al Ghitani, Edward Said, Zakaria Tamir, Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Elias Khoury, Amin Maalouf, and many more.
 
 

The prize for Arabic Literature was created in 2013 by the Foundation Jean-Luc Lagardère and the Arab World Institute in Paris. The 10,000 euros prize rewards one author (national of a state member of the Arab ligue) of a literary work written or translated into French. The prize will be awarded on October 18th in Paris, by former minister of culture Jack Lang during a ceremony that takes place at the Arab World Institute.

Interview conducted by Nahla Al Agli for Shubbak festival’s blog, in July 2017.
An ugly shadow side of Libya’s history is that it was a slave market route for centuries under Ottoman rule, way before the Italian occupation and prior to Libya’s declared independence in 1951. Growing up in Libya, children might still hear stories from elders about the black maids who used to work in their household or about distant cousins in Africa who carry their same recognisable surnames.
There would be no elaboration on the reality of the trade that …

This piece is taken from Refugees Worldwide, an anthology of writing commissioned as part of a project run by the International Literature Festival Berlin. Published in The Guardian on August 22, 2017
My sister, whom I haven’t seen for more than two years, told me she was going to cross the sea in a rubber dinghy. She hung up, not wanting to hear what I thought. She merely said something profound and sentimental and entrusted her three children to my care in the event that she drowned. A few minutes later …