The general secretariat of the Khaled Khalifa Prize for Fiction announced on Wednesday that Tunisian writer Imad Ali Qeida had won the prize’s second edition for his manuscript “Al-Munsarimun,” in the category for an unpublished first novel.
“Al-Munsarimun” between Nabeul and two eras
The novel is set in the Tunisian city of Nabeul and moves between two timelines, one extending to the 19th century and the other linked to Tunisia’s political and social reality in the post-revolution period. The judging panel praised the novel’s artistic construction, saying it engages with Tunisia’s political history through real and imagined characters and addresses the transformations of society from its early stages to the present day.
The panel said the work uses a complex structure and interwoven narrative techniques while retaining suspense throughout the protagonist’s journey across the eras, places and characters connected to his life and Tunisia’s history. Qeida’s win came after “Al-Munsarimun” reached the shortlist announced in July, which included five novels from Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia.
The prize’s establishment and Khaled Khalifa’s career
The prize was established in 2024 on the initiative of Khaled Khalifa’s friends to commemorate him on the first anniversary of his death. Khalifa, who lived from 1964 to 2023, emerged as a novelist and television drama writer in the 1990s.
His novel “In Praise of Hatred,” translated into six languages, was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008. “No Knives in the Kitchens of This City” also won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2013 and was itself shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
His other novels include “No One Prayed Over Them,” “Death Is Hard Work,” “The Qurbat Notebooks” and “The Guardian of Deception,” along with television series he wrote, including “Rainbow,” “The Al-Jalali Family Saga,” “The Godfather,” “Relative Calm” and “A Woman’s Shadow.”
