The Jordanian novel “Notebooks of Warraq” wins the 2021 Arab Booker Prize

Today, Tuesday, May 25th, the jury for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction announced the name of the winning novel of “Arab Poker” in its 14th session in 2021.

The novel “Notebooks of Warraq” by the Jordanian Jalal Barjas was chosen to win the Arab Booker Prize for this year, according to the head of the jury, the Lebanese poet and writer Shawki Bzeih, through the press conference that was broadcast live on the International Prize for Arabic Fiction channel on “YouTube”.

مبروك للكاتب جلال برجس على فوزه بالجائزة العالمية للرواية العربية للعام 2021 عن روايته "دفاتر الورّاق"، الصادرة عن المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر. يمكنكم مشاهدة الإعلان عن الرواية الفائزة هنا: https://t.co/wQqvj1kiQz#الرواية_العربية_2021 pic.twitter.com/WA5iuuV1rC

— International Prize for Arabic Fiction (@Arabic_Fiction) May 25, 2021

“Notebook Al-Warraq” tells the story of an insatiable schizophrenic reader who carries out a series of crimes, hiding behind the masks of fictional characters.

The short list for the fourteenth prize session this year included the novels “Missing the Neighbor” by Tunisian Habib Salmi, “The File 42” by Moroccan Abdel Majid Sabata, “Ain Hammurabi” by Algerian Abdel Latif Ould Abdallah, “Nazela Dar Al Akaber” by Tunisian Amira Ghneim and “Tattoo.” Al-Tair for Iraqi Dunia Mikhail.

Shortlisted writers are competing to win the grand prize of $ 50,000, while each writer who reaches the short list gets $ 10,000.

The Booker Prize at its fourteenth session received 121 fictional works from 13 countries before the jury announced the long list at the beginning of this month and included 16 works. The jury was formed headed by the Lebanese poet and writer Shawki Bzeih and the membership of the Lebanese translator Safaa Gibran and the Moroccan translator Muhammad Ait Hanna. The Yemeni writer Ali Al-Maqri and the Emirati journalist Aisha Sultan.

It is noteworthy that the International Prize for Arabic Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the Arab world, as it aims to reward excellence in contemporary Arab literature.

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction was established in 2007 and is sponsored by the “Booker Prize Foundation” in London, and funded by the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi. The prize is awarded exclusively in the field of fiction, and a long list is nominated, from which a short final list of six novels will be drawn to compete for the prize.

Source: The official website of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction