Rabee Jaber

Rabee Jaber is a Lebanese novelist and journalist born in 1972 in Beirut and studied physics at the American University of Beirut. He is presently editor of Afaaq [Horizons], the weekly cultural supplement of Al-Hayat daily newspaper. He was selected as one of the 39 best young Arab authors under 40 by the Beirut39 Hay Festival project.

His first novel, Master of Darkness, won the Critics Choice Prize in 1992 and since 1995 he has written 17 novels, all much admired by both readers and critics. Youssef al-Inglizi [Youssef the Englishman], published in 2002, was excerpted in Banipal 17, translated for Banipal by Issa J Boullata, as part of a feature on the author's work. For details of the feature please go to Banipal 17. 

A review by Sophie Richter-Devroe of Die Reise des Granadiners [The Journey of the Granadan] (2005) by Rabee Jaber, translated into German by Nermin Sherkawi, was publshed in Banipal 25. The French translation of his novel Berytus (Gallimard, 2009) was reviewed in Banipal 35 by Olivia Snaije.  Excerpts from The Druze of Belgrade were published in Banipal 41 and 43.

In 2010 his novel America was short-listed for the 2010 IPAF. Two years later his novel The Druze of Belgrade was awarded the 2012 IPAF. And in 2013 his novel "The Birds of the Holiday Inn" was longlisted for the 2013 IPAF.

His novels The Mehlis Report, published in Arabic in 2005, and Confessions have been published in English translation by New Directions, in 2013 and 2016 respectively. Click here to read the review of the former in Banipal 47. Confessions, published in Arabic in 2008, is entered for the 2016 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

Contributor's Issues

Banipal 17 - Summer 2003

Banipal 41 - Celebrating Adonis (2011)

Banipal 45 - Writers from Palestine (2012)

Banipal 43 - Celebrating Denys Johnson-Davies (2012)

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