International Prize for Arabic Literature 2024 goes to Tunisian Amira Ghenim for “A Calamity of Noble Houses”

Tunisian writer Amira Ghenim won the International Prize for Arabic Literature 2024, sponsored by the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation and the Arab World Institute (IMA), for her novel "Le Désastre de la Maison des Notables" (A Calamity of Noble Houses), translated from Arabic by Souad Labbize. The prize is one of the few French awards for literary works from the Arab world by authors writing in Arabic or French. The winner is the author of academic essays and three novels in Arabic, including The Yellow Dossier (2019), A Calamity of Noble Houses and Terre ardente (2024). The winner of this 11th edition was announced at a ceremony held on October 28 at the IMA headquarters in Paris. "Les carnets d'El-Razi" by Tunisian psychologist, clinician and author Aymen Daboussi was also shortlisted among the 7 novels representing Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Palestine and Lebanon. In the words of Manading Director of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation Pierre Leroy, who chaired the jury, this new edition of the prize honou rs "an intense novel, interweaving family intrigue and great history, which paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a Tunisia in the throes of change." "All the members of the jury and I salute the unique pen of the author who, thanks to an elaborate narrative process, has succeeded in giving birth to a powerful work, supported by a new collection that highlights the Arabic literature of the Maghreb, which is still too often ignored in France," he was quoted as saying accoring to the IMA website. The book is a compelling saga of two families that illuminates the lives of women in modern Tunisia in the 1930s. Against the backdrop of a country in turmoil, in search of its identity, the lives and destinies of the members of two important upper-class families of Tunis intertwine: the Ennaifer family, with a rigidly conservative and patriarchal mentality, and the Rassaa, open-minded and progressive. One terrible night in December 1935, the destiny of both families changes forever when Zbaida Ali Rassaa, the y oung wife of Mohsen Ennaifer, is accused of having had a clandestine love affair with Tahar Haddad, an intellectual of humble origins known for his union activism and support for women's rights. The events of that fateful night are told by eleven different narrators, members of the two families, who recall them in different historical moments, from the 1940s to the present day. The result is a complex mosaic of secrets, memories, accusations, regrets, and emotions, taking the reader on an exciting journey through the stories of individuals caught up in the upheavals of history. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

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