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Najwa Barakat
was born in 1960 in Beirut, studied theatre and film. She lives in Paris as a journalist, working for a number of Lebanese newspapers and international radio stations. She has published six novels in Arabic and one in French. She is the translator into Arabic of Albert Camus' notebooks.
Luke Leafgren, who won the 2018 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize, has translated two of her novels into English – Oh Salaam! (Interlink, 2015) and Mister N (And Other Stories, 2022).
In 2009 she set up a writers' workshop, based in Beirut, called Mohtaraf – workshops for fiction, play and script writing for young writers.
Banipal 22 (Spring 2005) published an excerpt from her novel A Bus of Good People (Dar al-Adab, 1996), for which the Lebanese Cultural Forum in Paris awarded Najwa Barakat the "Prize of the best literary creation of the year" in 1997.
Luke Leafgren also published an excerpt of the novel in the magazine Missing Slate.
Contributor's Issues
The Cinderellas of Muscat by Huda Hamed (Banipal Books, 2025)
The Tent Generations
Things I Left Behind by Shada Mustafa, translated by Nancy Roberts
Shadow of the Sun by Taleb Alrefai
Birds of Nabaa, A Mauritanian Tale by Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah
The Stone Serpent, Barates of Palmyra’s Elegy for Regina his Beloved by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Mansi A Rare Man in His Own Way by Tayeb Saleh (Banipal Books, 2020)
Tayeb Salih
Goat Mountain by Habib Selmi
Habib Selmi, author of Goat Mountain and 3 times shortlisted for the IPAF
The Mariner by Taleb Alrefai (Banipal Books, 2020)
Taleb Alrefai, author of Shadow of the Sun and The Mariner
Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures by Fadhil al-Azzawi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Fadhil al-Azzawi
Poems of Alexandria and New York by Ahmed Morsi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Saïd Khatibi
Amjad Nasser (1955–2019)
Digital Banipal the full archive
Ahmed Morsi, author of Poems of Alexandria and New York
Sarajevo Firewood
The Madness of Despair
LATEST NEWS
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Link to poems by Mosab Abu Toha, published in Banipal 71 (Summer 2021), available to read online
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Link to poem by Liana Badr published in Banipal 74, now available as an online selection
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GRIFFIN PRIZE SHORTLIST 2023
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Banipal's first audiobook* * *
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Banipal Book Club
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