Algerian author bags prestigious IPAF prize

The 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) has gone to Algerian author Abdelouahab Aissaoui for his book ‘Spartan Court’.

The Djelfa-born author was announced winner of the IPAF Tuesday in Abu Dhabi by the organizers who streamlined the ceremony due to movement restriction imposed by the UAE because of the novel coronavirus.

Aissaoui receives $50,000 cash prize and will have his winning work translated into English. He beat five other contenders hailing from Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq.

“Winning the prize is a great prospect and dream to which every novelist with a project aspires,” he said on IPAF website.

“But it also means greater responsibility and it raises expectations of readers – those interested in literature and critics – when they read the successful book and future works by the writer.”

With a background in electromechanical engineering, the 35-year-old man quickly developed a taste for writing. He won several literary awards including Algeria’s President of the Republic Prize with his piece Jacob’s Cinema (2013), Kuwait’s Suad al-Sabah Novel Prize in 2017 for his third book, Circles and Doors.

Spartant Court is a fiction work presenting a historical relation between the power struggle between Ottoman and French colonial powers in Algeria at the start of the 19th century.

The work invites readers to gain a greater understanding of life under occupation and the different forms of resistance that grow against it, commented Muhsin al-Musawi, chair of the prize’s five-member judging panel.

Established in 2017, IPAF is one the world’s leading generous literary awards. Backed by UK-based Booker Prize Foundation, the prize aims at promoting the translation of Arabic literature into English.