Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (I.P.A.F.), known as the “Arabic Booker.” Ursula Lindsey discusses the role of the award in the rise of Arab literature:
When I attended the Cairo International Book Fair, earlier this year, several bookstores and publishers were promoting I.P.A.F. winners. A salesgirl practically ordered me to buy last year’s winner, “The Bamboo Stalk,” which tells the story of a young man born to a Kuwaiti father and his family’s Philippina maid, dealing, along the way, with the second-class-citizen status of immigrants in the Persian Gulf.
Across the Arab world—where literacy rates remain low, copyright law is hard to enforce, and a print run of three thousand is considered a success—the lack of fiction readers is regularly bemoaned. But this does not seem to discourage writers here, who focus on the conflicts and cities they know, of course, but to whom the increased possibility of a regional and international audience may act as an added encouragement. Prizes like the one “Frankenstein in Baghdad” received lead to lively literary discussions and an increased awareness of new writers and trends across the region, in which books do not circulate nearly as freely as one would expect, owing to censorship, bureaucracy, and a struggling publishing business. The prize committee has added a writers’ workshop to its activities; Saadawi is a graduate.
Arab states have never been more in crisis than they are today, whether they have been destabilized by outside intervention, sectarian strife, religious extremism, or the demands of fed-up citizens. The governments’ ideologies, which once held out the promise of dignity and advancement, have become threadbare covers for corruption and repression; the spectre of their own dissolution is one of their main mobilizing tactics. One can only regret the staggering waste, chaos, and suffering this has entailed. But Arab writers are stitching the pieces back together again; what emerges may not be pretty, but it is already fascinating.
Meanwhile, in an interview, Hassan Blasim – the Iraqi author of The Corpse Exhibition: And Other Stories of Iraq – explains why he’s not especially interested in achieving recognition in his native country:
Some Iraqi writers are more daring today and have excellent imaginations and their material is rich in human experience. But the Arab prizes … are part of the context of life in the Arab world—anarchy, confusion, and corruption. I’m not much interested in prizes, whether from the Arab world or from the Western world. … For the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014, one of the judges works in the Saudi Shura Council. The Saudi Shura Council is not a parliament that is elected and free and that defends the interests and rights of Saudi citizens. It’s an obscurantist council that is a tool of oppression in the hands of the king of Saudi Arabia and his family. How can someone who doesn’t speak out about all the human rights violations in his country judge a literary prize?
The Dish 