The jury of the International Prize for Arab Fiction (Booker) announced in its 17th session on Sunday night that the novel “A Mask the Color of the Sky” by the imprisoned Palestinian novelist, Bassem Khandakji, won , the reward, after reaching the short time. list months ago.
Today, Sunday, the jury chose the Khandaqji novel award, among 133 novels nominated for the award, as the best novel published between July 2022 and June 2023. The publisher of the novel, Rana Idris, who owned Dar Al-Adab, the award on behalf of Khandaqji, who is held in Israeli occupation prisons.
The mask refers to the “blue identity” that Nour, an archaeologist living in a camp in Ramallah, finds in the pocket of an old coat owned by Israel – a novel documentary series based on celebrating with character building, experimentation, and recovering the history and memory of Places, according to the award statement.
The winning novel was chosen by a five-member jury, led by the Syrian Nabil Suleiman, and the membership of the Sudanese Hammour Ziada, the Palestinian Sonia Nimr, the Czech František Ondraš, and the Egyptian Muhammad Shair.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club explained in a statement that the imprisoned novelist Khandakji won the award after being subjected to a massive promotion campaign by the Israeli media, after his novel reached the Arab Booker Prize shortlist a few months ago.
The club continued with its statement: “The war on the Palestinian narrative was a regular procedure for the Israeli occupation in confronting the Palestinian presence, and the creativity of detainees was a regular target of the authorities residence, through intrusion, prosecution and enforcement. sanctions against detainees that left a clear imprint and influence on the level of intellectual and literary production.” the prison system over several decades, and the prisoner Khandakji, who published several novels and various productions during the years he was held, was one of the most prominent prisoners who contributed to intellectual and literary production.
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Bassem Khandakji
The head of the jury of the award, Nabil Suleiman, said: “In “A Mask in the Color of the Sky,” the personal joins the political in the innovative ways of a trilogy: self-awareness, other-awareness, and the sense of the world, where imagination reveals and erases reality The bitter complex, family breakdown, displacement, genocide and racism, as the strands of history, myth, today and time goes against and prospers in it, and the pulse of humanity was ignited in it, as were the desires of freedom and freedom from everything that draws the son of the man, individuals, and peace.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International Prize for Arab Fiction, Yasser Suleiman, said: “Khandakji’s novel travels through a world where the present clashes with the past , in attempts to show the ego with which the other is beating They are both among the tormented people on earth, but one of them suffers from the other In this relationship, the Palestinian Nakba becomes a memory as a reflection of a human catastrophe in which the victim has nothing. the hero’s mask is removed by the sky of Haifa, through which appears Mary Magdalene, whom the hero began to search for to save her from the clutches of Dan Brown in his novel “The Code.” “Khandakji’s novel digs deep into the earth to reveal its layers, unfolding its narrative in an authentic Arabic language that avoids victory and refuses to accept ruminations of pain.”
The novelist Bassem Khandakji (40 years old) from Nablus was arrested in November 2004. After his arrest, he was subjected to a harsh and long investigation, and the post imposed a sentence of three life imprisonment on him.
While in captivity, Khandakji published two collections of poetry and several literary novels, including “Narcissus of Solitude” and “The Eclipse of Badr al-Din,” as well as his latest novel, “A Mask in the Color of the Sky,” and some of his works have been translated into French.
Since his arrest, Khandakji has written collections of poetry, including “Rituals of the First Time” (2010) and “Breaths of a Night Poem” (2013).
While he finished the second novel, “Masters of the Holocaust,” from his “Mirror Trilogy” project, Khandakji is preparing the third and final part, entitled “The Demons of Mary of Galilee.” “
Novels by Ahmed Al-Morsi (Egypt), Osama Al-Aissa (Palestine), Raja Alam (Saudi Arabia), Rima Bali (Syria), and Issa Nasseri (Morocco) were shortlisted for the prize.
