The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (Booker) organized the second book tour in Arabic and English in the United States, in which the Iraqi novelist Shahad Al-Rawi, the shortlisted candidate in 2018, and her translator, Luc Lefgren, participated.
The eight-day book tour, which ended at the end of October, aims to encourage reading of outstanding Arab literature in America, with the participation of departments of Arabic and comparative literature at prestigious universities on the east coast of the United States.
The program included reading, discussing and asking questions about the novel, as well as playing Arabic music. The nine events were held from October 10 to 21 at a number of universities.
The aim of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction is to promote Arab literature and to shed light on Arab novelists globally; The award also intends to organize more similar book tours in other regions of the future, including the Midwest and West Coast, in Illinois, Michigan, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego.
Al-Rawi witnessed an Iraqi writer born in Baghdad in 1986, completed high school in Baghdad before moving with her family to Syria, where she obtained a master's degree in public administration. She teaches her PhD in Anthropology and Public Administration and resides in Dubai. Her first novel, The Hour of Baghdad, was published in 2016 and translated into English by Luke Lefgren, and was published by One World in May 2018. The novel was published in Turkish by Asteria Kuttab and in Indonesian by Bernada Media Group.