RAMALLAH, Sunday, April 28, 2024 (WAFA) – “A Mask, the Color of the Sky,” a novel written by Palestinian prisoner Basim Khandaqji, was today named as the winner of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF).
In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) said Khandakji won the award after being subjected to a rampant incitement campaign by the Israeli media subsequent to his nomination a few months ago for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, also known as "the Arabic Booker".
PPS added that the war on the Palestinian narrative constituted a consistent approach by the Israeli occupation in confronting the Palestinian presence, noting that the creativity of detainees was a constant target by the occupation authorities through prosecution and the imposition of sanctions against detainees who left a clear footprint and impact on the literary production.
The judges chose the winning book out of 133 submitted titles as the best novel published in Arabic between July 2022 and June 2023. The owner of its Lebanon-based publishing house Dar al-Adab, Rana Idriss, accepted the award in Abu Dhabi on behalf of Khandaqji.
The title of the Book is a reference to the blue Israeli-issued identity card that belonged to an Israeli and was found by the protagonist Nur – an archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah – in the pocket of an old coat. Nur adopts this mask, and what follows is an experimental and multi-layered narrative that sets out to reclaim elements of history and the memory of places with vivid and memorable characterization.
Nabil Suleiman, Chair of the 2024 Judges, said the novel fuses the personal with the political in innovative ways.
"It ventures into experimenting with new narrative forms to explore three types of consciousness; self-awareness, awareness of others and global awareness," he said, adding that it dissects a complex, bitter reality of family fragmentation, displacement, genocide and racism.
Forty-year-old Khandakji, from Nablus, was detained on November 2, 2004. Following his detention, he was subjected to a harsh and lengthy investigation. The occupation later sentenced him to three lifetimes in jail.
Before his detention, Khandaqji was a student at al-Najah National University, majoring in journalism and media. While in Prison, he issued two collections of poems, 250 articles, and several literary novels.
Khandaqji has written poetry collections – including “Rituals of the First Time” (2010) and “The Breath of a Nocturnal Poem” (2013) – as well as three earlier novels; The Narcissus of Isolation (2017), The Eclipse of Badr al-Din (2019) and The Breath of a Woman Let Down (2020). Some of his work have been translated into French.
A.D./T.R.
