Youssef Ziedan Wins $50,000 Arabic Fiction Prize

This week Egyptian novelist Youssef Ziedan won 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for his novel, “Beelzebub.” He received $50,000 along with the prize, and each of the six shortlisted authors received $10,000.

In this video interview, GalleyCat caught up with Jonathan Taylor , the Chairman of the IPAF Board of Trustees and of The Booker Prize Foundation–talking about American literary reception in the Middle East and Arabic literature in translation.

The panel of judges considered over 121 novels published in Arabic and entered from 16 different countries. Here’s more from the release: “This annual prize, which is run in association with the UK’s Booker Prize Foundation and with the financial support of the Emirates Foundation of Abu Dhabi, is for prose fiction in Arabic. Its aim is to recognise and reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage wider readership of such Arabic literature internationally through translation.”

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