Skip to main content
Read page text
page 106
THE 2012 SHORTLIST THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION Jabbour Douaihy for The Vagrant The Vagrant provides a realistic, engaging portrayal of the Lebanese civil war through the eyes of a young man who finds himself uprooted by the conflict. The hero represents the crisis of the Lebanese individual imposed upon by a sectarian reality.We follow his struggle to belong as he faces unfamiliar situations and conflicts in a society that considers him an outsider. Ezzedine Choukri Fishere for Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge This is a novel about alienation in its various forms and senses: the hero who doesn’t belong; his second wife, torn between professional ambition and desperation to give her husband the impression she belongs in his world; his son, with whom he has limited communication; his granddaughter, uncertain where she belongs, and his Egyptian friend, who discovers that neither his children nor his Cuban-American-Lebanese wife belong to his world. All these characters are invited to the birthday party of the protagonist’s granddaughter. Rabee Jaber for The Druze of Belgrade After the 1860 civil war in Mount Lebanon, a number of fighters from the religious Druze community are forced into exile, travelling by sea to the fortress of Belgrade on the boundary of the Ottoman Empire. In exchange for the freedom of a fellow fighter, they take with them a Christian man from Beirut called Hana Ya’qub; an unfortunate egg-seller who happens to be sitting at the port.The novel follows the fighters’ adventures in the Balkans as they struggle to stay alive. Nasser Iraq for The Unemployed This novel tells the story of a young, educated Egyptian man from a middle-class family who, like so many others, is forced to look for work in Dubai due to the lack of opportunity in Cairo. In Dubai, he discovers an astonishing world filled with people of all nationalities and he experiences mixed treatment from his friends, relations and acquaintances.And then, just as he falls in love with an Egyptian girl, he finds himself imprisoned for the murder of a Russian prostitute… Bachir Mefti for Toy of Fire This novel is the story of a meeting between the novelist, Bachir Mefti, and a mysterious character called Ridha Shawish, who presents Mefti with a manuscript containing his autobiography. Shawish’s goal in life has always been not to turn out like his father, who ran an underground cell in the seventies and committed suicide in the eighties. However, circumstances have driven him to follow in his father’s footsteps, resulting in him becoming a leading member of a secret group of his own. Habib Selmi for The Women of al-Bassatin This is an intimate portrayal of the daily lives of a modest family living in the AlBassatin district of Tunis in Tunisia.Through the stories of this small matriarchal environment, we observe the contradictions of the wider Tunisian society, exposing a world in flux between burdensome religious traditions and a troubled modernity. 104 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
page 107
2012 INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION JABBOUR DOUAIHY The Vagrant AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL, TRANSLATED BY GHENWA HAYEK The apartment in al-Manara, where chaos reigned. The small apartment with its wide balcony became a ship groaning beneath the weight of its cargo, bustling, its front door wide open by day, its lights beckoning at night, the hungry bringing their own food and drink.The only one who paid the electricity and water bills when the collector came by was Vasco. No one cleaned, no one complained. Nizam kept a black-and-white photograph of those crowded days, revealing the young men’s long, ugly sideburns and their obligatory thick moustaches, both markers of revolutionary dourness. It was a group picture of the gang, with all its members saveYusra Maktabi.They had heard her father never stopped complaining that he had spent his life in Africa only to see his daughter imprisoned for theft. But her parents gave her a lot of money, most of which she distributed among her fellow prisoners; they would bring her hot food, and she would share it. Her mother fretted that her daughter would catch something. Yusra left, and Maysaloun came. She, too, remembered his birthday. Nizam had forgotten it himself until Rakhima reminded him. From Houra, she sent down what she called “a plate” of food, which, in reality, would easily feed twenty. Two large pots of dolmas stuffed with rice, topped with the small intestines of young goats, also stuffed with rice, pine nuts and chopped meat, with small bundles of mint and garlic nestling in between. She must have spent over two days cooking. She sent along a note, written in her shaky hand, saying that Touma was “tired”, which meant that he was getting sicker, and that he had become “fussy”, which meant that the diabetes was making him angrier. She wished him a long life, a hundred years of happiness, and ended the note by writing that he only had to heat the dolmas on a low flame, then eat them to his heart’s content. Maysaloun showed up unannounced, bringing her husband and a cake. Nizam was slightly perturbed by this, but yielded to her presence. Her BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 105

Page Text

View plaintext

THE 2012 SHORTLIST

THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION

Jabbour Douaihy for The Vagrant The Vagrant provides a realistic, engaging portrayal of the Lebanese civil war through the eyes of a young man who finds himself uprooted by the conflict. The hero represents the crisis of the Lebanese individual imposed upon by a sectarian reality.We follow his struggle to belong as he faces unfamiliar situations and conflicts in a society that considers him an outsider.

Ezzedine Choukri Fishere for Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge This is a novel about alienation in its various forms and senses: the hero who doesn’t belong; his second wife, torn between professional ambition and desperation to give her husband the impression she belongs in his world; his son, with whom he has limited communication; his granddaughter, uncertain where she belongs, and his Egyptian friend, who discovers that neither his children nor his Cuban-American-Lebanese wife belong to his world. All these characters are invited to the birthday party of the protagonist’s granddaughter.

Rabee Jaber for The Druze of Belgrade After the 1860 civil war in Mount Lebanon, a number of fighters from the religious Druze community are forced into exile, travelling by sea to the fortress of Belgrade on the boundary of the Ottoman Empire. In exchange for the freedom of a fellow fighter, they take with them a Christian man from Beirut called Hana Ya’qub; an unfortunate egg-seller who happens to be sitting at the port.The novel follows the fighters’ adventures in the Balkans as they struggle to stay alive.

Nasser Iraq for The Unemployed This novel tells the story of a young, educated Egyptian man from a middle-class family who, like so many others, is forced to look for work in Dubai due to the lack of opportunity in Cairo. In Dubai, he discovers an astonishing world filled with people of all nationalities and he experiences mixed treatment from his friends, relations and acquaintances.And then, just as he falls in love with an Egyptian girl, he finds himself imprisoned for the murder of a Russian prostitute… Bachir Mefti for Toy of Fire This novel is the story of a meeting between the novelist, Bachir Mefti, and a mysterious character called Ridha Shawish, who presents Mefti with a manuscript containing his autobiography. Shawish’s goal in life has always been not to turn out like his father, who ran an underground cell in the seventies and committed suicide in the eighties. However, circumstances have driven him to follow in his father’s footsteps, resulting in him becoming a leading member of a secret group of his own.

Habib Selmi for The Women of al-Bassatin This is an intimate portrayal of the daily lives of a modest family living in the AlBassatin district of Tunis in Tunisia.Through the stories of this small matriarchal environment, we observe the contradictions of the wider Tunisian society, exposing a world in flux between burdensome religious traditions and a troubled modernity.

104 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content