Daily Times

Algerian author Abdelouahab Aissaoui has won the 13th International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) with his novel “The Spartan Court.” Backed by the UK’s Booker Prize Foundation, IPAF is financed by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism. “The Spartan Court” was chosen from a shortlist of six novels. Aissaoui will receive $50,000 and funds will be provided to translate the book into English, the organizers said on their website. The Spartan Court “invites the reader to gain a greater understanding of life under occupation and the different forms of resistance that grow against it,” said Muhsin al-Musawi, chair of the prize’s five-member judging panel. “With its deep, historical narrative structure, the novel does not live in the past, but rather it challenges the reader to question present reality,” he added, in remarks published on the IPAF website.