Lebanese Novel Wins Arabic Booker
The Night Mail by Lebanese author Hoda Barakat won the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Barakat is the second woman to win the prize, which is colloquially referred to as the "Arabic Booker," and valued at $50,000.
The Night Mail tells the stories of exiled, immigrant and lost individuals through a series of letters. In presenting the prize, Charafdine Majdouline, the chair of the judges said:“The Night Mail is a highly accomplished novel that stands out for its condensed economy of language, narrative structure, and capacity to convey the inner workings of human beings
The original publisher is Dar al-Adab, based in Beirut; English-language rights have been picked up by One World in the U.K. Funding support for the translation into English is provided by the prize and an English version, to be name The Night Post, will be published in 2020.
