The International Prize for Arabic Fiction announced the winning of the Libyan novelist Mohammed Al-Naas in the 15th session of the award for the year 2022 for his novel "Bread on Uncle Milad's Table".

Al-Naas, 31, is considered the second youngest writer to win the award in its history and the first Libyan writer, and his novel was published with the support of the Libyan Arity Foundation, according to the award statement.

During an event organized in Abu Dhabi, the head of the jury, Shukri Al-Mabkhout, revealed the name of the award-winning novel issued by Rasham for Publishing and Distribution, according to which Muhammad Al-Naas received the cash prize of $50,000, and the financing of the translation of his novel into English.

The winning novel

Al-Mabkhout said, "The crowning novel was based on recovering a personal experience in a variety of confessions that organized the elaborate, interesting narration, cluttering its details, to present a deep accurate criticism of the prevailing perceptions of masculinity and femininity, the division of labor between men and women and their psychological and social impact. It is a novel that lies at the heart of universal cultural questions about issues gender, but it is embedded - at the same time - in its local and Arab environment, away from the offensive ideological approach to the relativity of the novel and its dialogue.

In turn, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Yasser Suleiman, said that the novel deals with the society of Libya in the second half of the 20th century.

He added, "Milad emerges from the folds of the narrative, assuming the role of the knowledgeable narrator, to enter us into his inner worlds in which bread is fermented, vibrant with a life that makes him a major character in the novelist text alongside Milad. Storytelling does not close the doors, and the flow of the language that flows in its veins with elegance that is not exaggerated, to express the secrets of the soul and the body without pretension or vulgarity.

Congratulations to the writer Muhammad Al-Naas for winning the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for the year 2022 for his novel “Bread on the Table of Uncle Milad”: https://t.co/S2dVTiVBT7# The Arabic_Novel 2022 pic.twitter.com/dzWCeQg5JP

— International Prize for Arabic Fiction (@Arabic_Fiction) May 22, 2022

The events of “Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table” take place in the closed village community. Milad searches for the ideal definition of masculinity as seen by his community. He fails throughout his life to be a man after many attempts, so he decides to be himself and forget this definition after getting to know his girlfriend and wife. The future Zainab, lives his days inside the house and plays roles that society singled out for women, while his girlfriend works to provide for the house, and Milad remains hidden from the reality of his society’s ridicule of him until his cousin reveals to him what is happening around him.

The first novel by a young writer

Muhammad Al-Naas is a Libyan storyteller and writer, born in 1991. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tripoli in 2014, and his “Blue Blood” (a short story collection) was published in 2020.

"Bread on Uncle Milad's Table" (2021) is his first novel, and he wrote it in 6 months during the quarantine period when he was residing in the Libyan city of Tripoli under bombing and news of death about disease and war, and writing the novel was "his fortress from entering the stage of madness", on as he put it.

The novel was chosen from among 6 novels in the short list by writers from the UAE, Oman, Libya, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco. The writers who were nominated for the short list were Tariq Imam, Bushra Khalfan, Reem Al Kamali, Khaled Al Nasrallah, Muhammad Al Naas and Mohsen Al Wakeli, and the six candidates received a prize of $ 10,000.

The winning novel was chosen by a jury composed of 5 members headed by the Tunisian novelist and academic Shukri Al-Mabkhout, who won the award in 2015 for his novel “The Italian”, and the membership of Iman Humaidan, a Lebanese writer and member of the managing board of the International PEN Club, and Bayan Rehanova, an academic and Bulgarian translator, and Ashour. Al-Tuwaibi is a physician, poet and translator from Libya, and Saadia Mufreh is a poet and critic from Kuwait.