- Said Khatibi wins 19th edition of International Prize for Arabic Fiction for Swimming Against the Tide
- Khatibi is an Algerian novelist, and this is his sixth novel; he was IPAF-shortlisted in 2020 for Firewood of Sarajevo, and this year becomes the second Algerian novelist to win the prize – and the first since 2020
- The novel unfolds across Algiers, linking a medical conspiracy to the unresolved legacies of the War of Liberation and its aftermath, from the Second World War to the early 1990s
www.arabicfiction.org | #ArabicFiction2026
Thursday 9 April 2026: Swimming Against the Tide by Said Khatibi was announced today as the winner of the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). The novel, published by Hachette Antoine, was named as this year’s winner by Chair of Judges Mohamed Elkadhi via an online announcement.
The judges selected the winning book from 137 submitted titles as the best novel published in Arabic between July 2024 and June 2025.
The novel follows two parallel stories in Algiers: a female ophthalmologist who restores her patients’ sight with corneas stolen from dead bodies is arrested for the murder of her husband, while her father, a former freedom fighter, is accused of collaboration with the former French occupier. As the narratives converge, it traces Algeria’s history from the Second World War to the Black Decade of the 1990s (the Algerian Civil War), including the War of Liberation and its aftermath.
In a film produced by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Said Khatibi said:
“The character of Aqeela in the novel not only attempts to save her patients by restoring their sight; she also strives to save a society by helping it see things as they truly are. Placing an investigation into a crime right at the beginning of the novel serves as a gateway to exploring and understanding a greater crime, a societal ill, spanning several decades.”
Mohamed Elkadhi, Chair of the 2026 judges, said:
“Swimming Against the Tide is a captivating novel that lives up to its title, subtly probing the origins of the Black Decade in Algeria by swimming against the current of history. Said Khatibi presents us with fragments of a complex, hazy picture that the reader must reconstruct and rearrange in order to arrive at a meaning that encapsulates this elusive historical moment.
In sensitive prose that strikes a balance between the everyday and the literary, the personal and the collective intertwine in a novel peopled by complex characters, both cruel and fragile. It is a novel to be devoured with relish, yet in its piercing scrutiny of unspoken and thwarted human pains and desires, it also leaves a bitter taste.”
Professor Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said:
“Swimming Against the Tide is deceptively cast in the form of a crime thriller to probe key moments in Algerian history, from the War of Independence (1956-62) through the decades that followed, up to the onset of the civil strife, known as the Black Decade in the early 1990s. Told through two intertwined, intergenerational narratives, those of a daughter and her father, the novel’s intricate movement back and forth through time reveals the tensions and conflicts Algerians underwent in that period, as if to suggest that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Behavioural patterns are repeated, variations on the same maladies in society are recycled and the interminable wait for a Godot-like saviour remains illusory. The novel succeeds in drawing the reader into the intersecting narratives through deftly structured storytelling that keeps the reader searching for answers until the very end.”
Based in Slovenia, Said Khatibi is an Algerian novelist and journalist, educated at the University of Algiers and the Sorbonne. He is the award‑winning author of Forty Years Waiting for Isabel (2016), winner of the 2017 Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel, Firewood of Sarajevo (2018), IPAF-shortlisted in 2020, and The End of the Desert (2022), winner of the 2023 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
This marks the second time the author has been recognised by the prize and makes him its first Algerian winner since 2020, when he was also shortlisted. The novel is published by Hachette Antoine.
Alongside Said Khatibi, the 2026 shortlist features novels by Ahmad Abdulatif (Egypt), Najwa Barakat (Lebanon), Doaa Ibrahim (Egypt), Diaa Jubaili (Iraq), and Amin Zaoui (Algeria).
The panel of five judges was chaired by Tunisian researcher and critic, Mohamed Elkadhi. Joining him on the judging panel were 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 aim of IPAF is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning, shortlisted or longlisted novels in other major languages.
The prize is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
For further information about the prize, please visit:
Website www.arabicfiction.org
To watch the 2026 winner announcement, visit the IPAF YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@ArabicFictionPrize
Winning book: Synopsis and author bio
Said Khatibi is an Algerian novelist, born in 1984. He studied French Literature at the University of Algiers and Cultural Studies at the Sorbonne University. Since 2006 he has worked in journalism and currently lives in Slovenia. His published works include: The Orbit of Absence (a translation into French of Algerian stories, 2009), Book of Sins (2013), Flaming Gardens of the East (2015), Forty Years Waiting for Isabel (2016), which won the 2017 Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel, in the published novels category; and Firewood of Sarajevo (2018), IPAF-shortlisted in 2020 and published in English by Banipal Books and in Serbian by Geopoetika Books. His novel The End of the Desert (2022) won the 2023 Sheikh Zayed Book Award, in the young author category. He also won the Ibn Battuta Prize for Travel Literature in 2015.
Swimming Against the Tide
A renowned ophthalmologist and her husband, a doctor in charge of a hospital morgue, conspire to steal corneas from the deceased to sell in her clinic. But when he is murdered and she is interrogated, the secrets of their relationship are exposed. Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, veteran fighters plead for the dismissal of the fabricated charges of collaboration with the French occupiers made against them. The connection between these two different scenarios is revealed as the novel progresses. Swimming Against the Tide chronicles half a century of Algerian history, from the Second World War to the early 1990s, including the War of Liberation and its aftermath.
IPAF Shortlist 2026
| Author | Title | Nationality | Publisher |
| Ahmad Abdulatif | The Origin of Species | Egypt | Hayat Publications |
| Najwa Barakat | The Absence of Mai | Lebanon | Dar al-Adab |
| Doaa Ibrahim | A Cloud Above My Head | Egypt | Dar al-Ain |
| Diaa Jubaili | The Seer | Iraq | Dar Rashm |
| Said Khatibi | Swimming Against the Tide | Algeria | Hachette Antoine |
| Amin Zaoui | Siesta Dream | Algeria | Dar al-Ain |
IPAF Judging panel 2026 — biographies
Mohamed Elkadhi (Chair) is a Tunisian researcher and critic, specialising in Arabic literature and theoretical and applied narratology. He studied at the University of Tunis and received a state doctorate in Arabic literature from Manouba University, Tunisia. He has taught at the University of Tunis since 1983 and served on the judging panels of a number of prizes, including the UAE Sultan Ali Al Owais Cultural Award, the Tunisian COMAR Prize, and the Omani Sultan Qaboos Award. He won the international Ibn Khaldoun-Senghor Translation Award in 2018 and the Taher Haddad Prize for Humanities and Literature in 2023. He is the author of several academic books, including Novel Dialogism (2005); The Novel and History (2008); Challenges of the Arabic Novel: Between Creativity and Universality, co-authored with Said Yaktine (2011); and Sources of Modern Narratology, co-authored with Noureddine Benkhoud (2021). Translations by him include an anthology of Tunisian poetry translated into French (2003); En bas, les nuages, a novel by Marc Dugain translated from French into Arabic (2012); and The Rocking Chair by Tunisian novelist Amal Mokhtar, translated from Arabic into French (2022).
Maya Abu Al-Hayyat is a Palestinian poet, novelist, translator and writer of children’s stories, born in Beirut. She has published four novels, four poetry collections, and numerous books of children’s stories. She founded and ran the Palestine Writing Association, which seeks to encourage reading and to publish stories and literary resources. She has translated several novels into Arabic and edited a book of short stories entitled The Book of Ramallah (2021) published by Comma Press, London. Her poetry has been translated into English, French and German. In 2022, her poetry collection You Can Be the Last Leaf (2012) was a finalist for the Barrios Book in Translation Prize, awarded by the National Book Critics Circle in the US, and for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, awarded by Arrowsmith Press in the US. The latter was established to honour the work of Nobel Prize poet Derek Walcott and is awarded annually for a book of poetry by a non-US citizen. Her novel No One Knows Their Blood Type (2013) was translated into English, Italian and Spanish, and shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award and the National Translation Award in Prose from the American Literary Translators Association in 2025. Maya Abu Al-Hayyat lives in occupied Jerusalem.
Dheya Alkaabi is a Bahraini academic and critic working in the field of cultural narratives, histories of critical thought, discourse analysis, feminist studies, and narrative studies of classical and modern texts. She has also founded her own cultural narrative project. She obtained a PhD in Philosophy of Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Jordan and is currently Dean of the College of Arts at the University of Bahrain. She has a large collection of peer-reviewed research and several published works, including Classical Arabic Narrative: Cultural Patterns and Problems of Interpretation (2005); Popular Arabic Narratives: Cultural Representation and Interpretation (2014); Polemical Discourse in Arab Culture: Interpretative Approaches (2014); and the five-volume Bahraini Folk Tales: A Thousand and One Tales, A Collective Documentation Project (2019). She has co-authored several edited anthologies and contributed five books to the Wells of Arabic Poetry project published by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre.
Laila Hyewon Baek is an assistant professor and head of the Department of Korean and Arabic Languages at the Graduate School of Translation (GSIT) at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) in South Korea. She holds MA and PhD degrees in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Jordan. She has translated a number of Arabic novels, including The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant by Sahar Khalifeh; The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi (IPAF 2013 winner); My Early Life by Sultan Al-Qasimi; and The Mu’allaqat for Millennials by Kevin Blankinship and Hatem Alzahrani. She has several published academic papers, including The Transformation of Narrative Discourse in Arabic Literature After the 1967 Defeat (2022); and Problematics of the Self and the Other and Their Metaphorical Manifestations in The Bamboo Stalk (2022).
Shakir Nouri is an Iraqi journalist, novelist and translator. He obtained a BA degree in English Literature from the University of Baghdad in 1972 and returned to his hometown to work as a secondary school English teacher for four years. In 1977, he emigrated to Paris, where he remained until 2004. Whilst there, he obtained an MA in Media from the École Supérieure des Hautes Études, a BTS degree in Cinematography from Louis Lumière Institute and a PhD in Cinema and Theatre from the Sorbonne University. He has worked as a cultural correspondent for several Iraqi and Arab newspapers and magazines, and at Monte Carlo Radio and the Sorbonne University. He currently works in journalism, media, and as a university teacher in Dubai. He won the Ibn Battuta Award for Travel Literature for his book A Residence Permit in the Tower of Babel: Paris Diaries (2013). He is the author of numerous novels, non-fiction books, and translations into Arabic from English and French. His ninth novel Khatun Baghdad (2016), about explorer Gertrude Bell, won the Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel in the published novel category in 2017.
About the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and its work
- The previous winners of the prize are:
2008: Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher (Egypt)
2009: Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan (Egypt)
2010: Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles by Abdo Khal (Saudi Arabia)
2011: The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari (Morocco) and The Doves’ Necklace by Raja Alem (Saudi Arabia)
2012: The Druze of Belgrade by Rabee Jaber (Lebanon)
2013: The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi (Kuwait)
2014: Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq)
2015: The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout (Tunisia)
2016: Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba by Rabai al-Madhoun (Palestine)
2017: A Small Death by Mohammed Hasan Alwan (Saudi Arabia)
2018: The Second War of the Dog by Ibrahim Nasrallah (Palestine)
2019: The Night Mail by Hoda Barakat (Lebanon)
2020: The Spartan Court by Abdelouahab Aissaoui (Algeria)
2021: Notebooks of the Bookseller by Jalal Barjas (Jordan)
2022: Bread on the Table of Uncle Milad by Mohamed Alnaas (Libya)
2023: The Water Diviner by Zahran Alqasmi (Oman)
2024: A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji (Palestine)
2025: The Prayer of Anxiety by Mohamed Samir Nada (Egypt)
- The authors of the shortlisted novels are awarded USD$10,000, and the winner’s prize is a further USD$50,000.
- An independent Board of Trustees, drawn from across the Arab world and beyond, is responsible for the overall management of the prize. Yasir Suleiman CBE, FRSE, FRCPE(Hon), Emeritus Professor of Modern Arabic, University of Cambridge, is Chair of Trustees. The Trustees are, in alphabetical order: Isobel Abulhoul OBE, Founder, Trustee and former CEO of Emirates Literature Foundation; Yassin Adnan, Moroccan journalist, broadcaster and writer; Abdulla Majed Al Ali, Director General, UAE National Library and Archives, columnist, formerly involved in a number of cultural initiatives in the UAE, including the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, the Kalima Translation Project, the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair and Abu Dhabi libraries; Will Forrester, Head of Literature Programmes at English PEN, Director of Untold Narratives, an Independent Expert for Creative Europe, and a Trustee of the Poetry Translation Centre; Michel S. Moushabeck, Founder and President of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc., writer, editor, and musician, USA; Seif Salmawy, CEO and co-founder of Al Karma Publishers (Egypt); Ahdaf Soueif, author and political and cultural commentator; and Dr Ali bin Tamim, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, Secretary-General of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, researcher and literary critic, former lecturer at the UAE University and head of the Abu Dhabi Media Company, founder of various literary initiatives. The prize’s Administrator is Fleur Montanaro.
- Reflecting its mission to increase the international reach of Arabic fiction, recent winning IPAF novels which have been published or are forthcoming in English include Basim Khandaqji’s A Mask, the Colour of the Sky (winner 2024, anticipated publication in 2026 from Europa Editions), Zahran Alqasmi’s The Water Diviner (winner 2023, forthcoming publication by Hoopoe), and Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table (winner 2022, forthcoming publication by HarperVia). Iman Humaydan’s Songs for the Darkness (longlist 2025) has been published by Interlink, and three IPAF novels shortlisted in 2024 and 2025 are forthcoming in English in 2026: Rima Bali’s Suleima’s Ring (shortlist 2024, Interlink), Haneen Al-Sayegh’s The Women’s Covenant (shortlist 2025, Interlink) and Nadia Najar’s The Touch of Light (shortlist 2025, ELF Publishing).
- In addition to the annual prize, IPAF supports literary initiatives including its Nadwa (writers’ workshop) for emerging writers from across the Arab world. Established in 2009, the Nadwa was the first of its kind for Arab writers. Each Nadwa results in new fiction by some of the Arab world’s most promising authors, some of whom have gone on to have works entered, be shortlisted and even win the Prize. Nine Nadwas have taken place in Abu Dhabi (eight under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and in 2017 supported by the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation). Others have been held in Jordan, Oman and Sharjah, in partnership with, respectively, the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, the Muscat Cultural Club, the Department of Culture — Sharjah Government and the Sharjah Book Authority. IPAF’s inaugural editing workshop took place in Jordan, at the Shoman Foundation in January 2025, followed by a second edition in October 2025. These workshops aim to develop the skills of professionals in the Arab publishing world and encourage excellence in the industry.
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, part of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
About the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre
The Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, established under a directive from HH the UAE President, as part of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, works to support Arabic language development and modernisation through comprehensive strategies and frameworks, enrich the scientific, educational, cultural and creative contributions of the Arabic language, promote Arabic language proficiency and cultural understanding, and support Arab talents in the fields of writing, translation, publishing, scientific research, arts, content creation, and organising book fairs. The Centre works to realise its foundational vision through dedicated programmes, human expertise, and meaningful partnerships with the world’s most prestigious technical, cultural and academic institutions.
The prize is also supported by the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.