The 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction longlist: Why introspection and memory define contemporary Arabic fiction

Over the years, the longlist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction — which recognises outstanding contemporary Arabic novels and promotes high-quality Arabic literature globally through translation — has become more than just a competition.

Today, each edition offers valuable insights into contemporary Arabic fiction while showcasing a diverse range of styles and narrative approaches, allowing readers and critics to interpret the texts for themselves.

This trend is particularly evident in the 2026 edition, announced on 15 December, where the longlist can be seen as a literary landscape defined less by a single theme and more by common threads running through the works.

For example, most of the 16 nominated novels focus on introspection, exploring the inner lives of characters rather than on large-scale political events or dominant historical narratives.

Key themes like memory, family, the body, isolation, and absence emerge as central drivers of these narratives, with traditional, active protagonists often replaced by fragile, hesitant figures on the brink of transformation.

These themes become clearer when examining the works themselves.

For instance, Marwan Al-Ghafory's Khams Manāzil Lillāh wa-Ghurfah li-Jaddatī (Five Houses for God and a Room for My Grandmother) and Umaima al-Khamis's 'Amma Āl Mushriq (The Al Musharaq Family's Aunt) both explore fragmented family memories and the darkness within family structures.

Furthermore, isolation is presented as an existential experience in Abdel Salam Ibrahim's Uzlat al-Kangaroo (Kangaroo Solitude) and Essam El Zayaat's Al-Ikhtibaa' fi 'Ajlat Hamster (Hiding in a Hamster Wheel).

Meanwhile, in Najwa Barakat's Ghaybat Mayy (May Vanishes), absence shapes an unhealed emotional wound.

This sense of suspended anxiety is also evident in Doaa Ibrahim's Fawq Ra'si Sahaba (A Cloud Above My Head) and Abdo Wazen's Al-Hayat Laysat Riwaya (Life Is Not a Novel), where internal tensions permeate daily life.

In all of these works, the focus is more on the self's internal landscapes than on external events.

At the same time, epistemological and formal questions emerge strongly in works such as Abdelmajid Sebbata's Fi Matahat al-Ustadh F. N. (In the Labyrinth of Mr F. N.) and Ahmed Abdel Latif's Asl al-Anwa' (The Origin of Species), where structural experimentation and the questioning of certainty are central to the search for meaning.

Other novels explore history, authority, and symbolism in complex and non-conventional ways, such as Sharifa al-Toubi's Al-Bayraq: Huboob Al-Reeh (Al-Bayraq: The Blowing of the Wind), Said Khatibi's Aghalib Majra' an-Nahr (I Resist the River's Course), Abdel Wahab Esawy's Habl al-Jadda Touma (Grandmother Touma's Rope), Nizar Chaqrun's Ayyam al-Fatimi al-Maqtul (The Murdered Fatimid Days), and Amin Zaoui's Manam al-Qaylula (Nap Time Dreams).

Meanwhile, Diaa Jubaili's Al-Ra'i (The Seer) and Khalil Sweileh's Ma' al-‘Aroos (Water of the Bride) explore the boundaries of vision and language, where witnessing merges with hallucination and the body with place, in narratives that focus on depth rather than scope.

Memory also features in many of these works, not as a means of recovering the past, but as a way of understanding the present. Similarly, alienation is depicted as a personal, inner experience rather than something tied to a specific place.

In Uzlat al-Kangaroo, isolation is depicted through migration and the experience of living with uncertain identities. At the same time, Al-Ikhtiba' fi 'Ajlat Hamster presents a different kind of isolation: one within the daily rhythm of life, where constant movement leads not to fundamental transformation but to a sense of exhaustion and meaninglessness.

Then, in Ghaybat Mayy, disappearance is shown not as a single event but as a lasting impact on language, memory, and relationships, where absence becomes a persistent presence rather than an empty void.

A quieter echo of this can be found in Fawq Ra'si Sahaba, where unseen anxiety takes on a psychological weight that overshadows everyday life.

Beyond memory, the image of the active protagonist recedes in favour of more observing or hesitant selves.

In Al-Ra'i, for example, the narrator becomes a confused witness, with perception shifting between reality and hallucination, while in Fi Matahat al-Ustadh F. N., the central character is trapped in a complex cognitive and narrative maze, where even certainty is called into question.

This is in line with the focus on form in Asl al-Anwa', which blends philosophy, science, and mythology — not to present a fixed thesis, but to challenge the concept of "origin" and turn it into an open question.

Without doubt, these narrative choices naturally raise questions.

With the longlist containing few works that explore significant events or use plot and external conflict as central tools for meaning, it is hard not to ask whether the focus on introspective, fragile fiction has sidelined other forms of storytelling.

That said, the recurring themes of memory and self-reflection could lead to unintended similarities between the texts, with differences appearing more as a matter of degree than of narrative ambition.

Yet these critiques have their limits: the longlist does not claim to represent all current Arabic fiction, but it does highlight works considered worthy of recognition today.

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original, click here

Article translated by Afrah Almatwari