The news below was taken from the IPAF’s website. Our favorite literature blogger is attending the conference in Cairo and should get back later today with some further insight!

Douaihy’s Chased away was awarded the Hanna Wakim prize for his book ‘Chased away’ | Charid al manazel, published by Dar annahar in 2010. The novel was selected by students of 9 high schools, among 5 Lebanese novels.

Since 2008, the International Prize for Arabic fiction, also known as the Arab Man Booker Prize, has been a reference in the literary scene. The long list for the 2012 prize was announced yesterday, and Jabbour Douaihy’s Chased away is in it!

Douaihy is the only writer who avoided the trap of compliance, choosing a party over the other, in his narration of the Lebanese war. He does not express any ideological bias through one of his characters. He does not rely on critique to cleanse his own past, or take up a general humanist stand. Such is the case of many works, the authors of which fall in the abyss of interpretation and theory, or attempt to incriminate some of the factions over the others. Douaihy is also the only one to have explored the question of sectarian “differences”, in order to weave an impressive literary ground on its basis

Hassan Daoud, Abbas Baydoun and Jabbour Douaihy: hope and reassurance, in the face of an overwhelming tendency of young authors who are drowning us in degrading sexual pornography, as the only way to fame and popularity.

Jabbour Douaihy’s recent novel, from the perspective of an old leftist, represents an important opportunity to rediscover ourselves