This year’s IPAF longlisted authors are from ten different countries, including Egypt, Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox

Yesterday, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), announced the longlist for the 2026 prize which features one previous winner (Adelouahab Aissaoui), two authors who have previously been shortlisted (Said Khatibi and Abdelmajid Sebbata), and three authors previously longlisted (Ahmad Abdulatif, Omaima Abdullah Al-Khamis, and Amin Zaoui).

These are the novels longlisted for the prize:

• The Origin of Species by Ahmad Abdulatif
• The Al Musharaq Family’s Aunt by Omaima Al-Khamis
• Grandma Touma’s Cord by Adelouahab Aissaoui
• The Absence of Mai by Najwa Barakat
• Days of the Murdered Fatimid by Nizar Chakroun
• Five Houses for God and a Room for My Grandmother by Marwan Al-Ghafouri
• The Solitude of the Kangaroo by Abdelsalem Ibrahim
• A Cloud Above My Head by Doaa Ibrahim
• The Seer by Diaa Jubaili
• I Resist the River’s Course by Said Khatibi
• In the Labyrinths of Mr. F N by Abdelmajid Sebbata
• Water of the Bride by Khalil Sweileh
• The Flag: The Blowing of the Wind by Sherifa Al-Toubi
• Life Is Not a Novel by Abdo Wazen
• Siesta Dream by Amin Zaoui
• Hiding in a Hamster Wheel by Essam El Zayaat

“The novels included in this year’s longlist are a microcosm of the contemporary Arab literary scene in all its richness and variety,” said Mohamed Elkadhi, Chair of the 2026 judges. “Many of the novels turn inward, exploring the private worlds of distinctive and unforgettable characters experiencing psychological crises and struggling to adapt to lived reality. History, too, figures prominently in works that evoke the recent or distant past with striking immediacy, probing its reverberations in the present.

The longlist has been chosen from a total of 137 submissions by a panel of five judges chaired by Tunisian researcher and critic Mohamed Elkadhi; Palestinian writer and translator Maya Abu Al-Hayyat; Bahraini academic and critic Dheya Alkaabi; South Korean academic Laila Hyewon Baek; and Iraqi writer and translator Shakir Nouri.

The prize is awarded annually for novels in Arabic. Each of the finalists receive $10,000, with a further $50,000 going to the winner. IPAF is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, part of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, and was originally mentored by the Booker Prize Foundation.

The goal of IPAF is to increase the international reach of Arabic fiction. Many of their past winners are soon to be published in English, including A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji; The Water Diviner by Zahran Alqasmi; The Touch of Light by Nadia Najar; and Songs for the Darkness by Iman Humaydan.

The six shortlisted titles will be chosen by the judges and announced in February 2026 in Bahrain with the announcement of the winner coming on Thursday, April 9th in Abu Dhabi.