Abu Dhabi- The 'Night Mail' by Lebanese Hoda Barakat was announced as the winner of the 12th International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF).
The novel, published by Dar al-Adab, was named as this year’s winner by the Chair of Judges, Charafdine Majdouline.
Barakat was presented with her award at a ceremony held at the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi.
In addition to winning USD $50,000, funding will be provided for the English translation of The Night Mail, and Barakat can expect an increase in book sales and international recognition.
The English translation rights have already been sold and Oneworld Publications in the UK will publish Barakat’s winning book as The Night Post in 2020.
The Night Mail tells the stories of letter writers. The letters are lost, like the people who have penned them, but each is linked to another and their fates are woven together, like those of their owners.
The writers are foreigners, either immigrants by choice or forced by circumstance to leave their countries; exiled and homeless, orphans of their countries with fractured destinies. The novel’s realm is like the times we live in one of deep questioning and ambiguity, where boundaries have been erased, and old places and homes lost forever.
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is an annual literary prize for prose fiction in Arabic. It is sponsored by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) and is run with the support, as its mentor, of the Booker Prize Foundation in London.