emirates7 - Said Khatibi wins 19th edition of International Prize for Arabic Fiction for Swimming Against the Tide
Khatibi is an Algerian novelist, and this is his sixth novel; he was IPAF-shortlisted in 2020 for Firewood of Sarajevo, and this year becomes the second Algerian novelist to win the prize - and the first since 2020
The novel unfolds across Algiers, linking a medical conspiracy to the unresolved legacies of the War of Liberation and its aftermath, from the Second World War to the early 1990s
Swimming Against the Tide by Said Khatibi was announced today as the winner of the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). The novel, published by Hachette Antoine, was named as this year’s winner by Chair of Judges Mohamed Elkadhi via an online announcement.
The judges selected the winning book from 137 submitted titles as the best novel published in Arabic between July 2024 and June 2025.
The novel follows two parallel stories in Algiers: a female ophthalmologist who restores her patients' sight with corneas stolen from dead bodies is arrested for the murder of her husband, while her father, a former freedom fighter, is accused of collaboration with the former French occupier. As the narratives converge, it traces Algeria’s history from the Second World War to the Black Decade of the 1990s (the Algerian Civil War), including the War of Liberation and its aftermath.
In a film produced by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Said Khatibi said:
“The character of Aqeela in the novel not only attempts to save her patients by restoring their sight; she also strives to save a society by helping it see things as they truly are. Placing an investigation into a crime right at the beginning of the novel serves as a gateway to exploring and understanding a greater crime, a societal ill, spanning several decades.”
Mohamed Elkadhi, Chair of the 2026 judges, said:
“Swimming Against the Tide is a captivating novel that lives up to its title, subtly probing the origins of the Black Decade in Algeria by swimming against the current of history. Said Khatibi presents us with fragments of a complex, hazy picture that the reader must reconstruct and rearrange in order to arrive at a meaning that encapsulates this elusive historical moment.
In sensitive prose that strikes a balance between the everyday and the literary, the personal and the collective intertwine in a novel peopled by complex characters, both cruel and fragile. It is a novel to be devoured with relish, yet in its piercing scrutiny of unspoken and thwarted human pains and desires, it also leaves a bitter taste.”
Professor Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said:
“Swimming Against the Tide is deceptively cast in the form of a crime thriller to probe key moments in Algerian history, from the War of Independence (1956-62) through the decades that followed, up to the onset of the civil strife, known as the Black Decade in the early 1990s. Told through two intertwined, intergenerational narratives, those of a daughter and her father, the novel’s intricate movement back and forth through time reveals the tensions and conflicts Algerians underwent in that period, as if to suggest that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Behavioural patterns are repeated, variations on the same maladies in society are recycled and the interminable wait for a Godot-like saviour remains illusory. The novel succeeds in drawing the reader into the intersecting narratives through deftly structured storytelling that keeps the reader searching for answers until the very end.”
Based in Slovenia, Said Khatibi is an Algerian novelist and journalist, educated at the University of Algiers and the Sorbonne. He is the award‑winning author of Forty Years Waiting for Isabel (2016), winner of the 2017 Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel, Firewood of Sarajevo (2018), IPAF-shortlisted in 2020, and The End of the Desert (2022), winner of the 2023 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
This marks the second time the author has been recognised by the prize and makes him its first Algerian winner since 2020, when he was also shortlisted. The novel is published by Hachette Antoine.
Alongside Said Khatibi, the 2026 shortlist features novels by Ahmad Abdulatif (Egypt), Najwa Barakat (Lebanon), Doaa Ibrahim (Egypt), Diaa Jubaili (Iraq), and Amin Zaoui (Algeria).
The panel of five judges was chaired by Tunisian researcher and critic, Mohamed Elkadhi. Joining him on the judging panel were Palestinian writer and translator Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Bahraini academic and critic Dheya Alkaabi, South Korean academic Laila Hyewon Baek, and Iraqi writer and translator Shakir Nouri.
The aim of IPAF is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning, shortlisted or longlisted novels in other major languages.
The prize is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
Khatibi is an Algerian novelist, and this is his sixth novel; he was IPAF-shortlisted in 2020 for Firewood of Sarajevo, and this year becomes the second Algerian novelist to win the prize - and the first since 2020
The novel unfolds across Algiers, linking a medical conspiracy to the unresolved legacies of the War of Liberation and its aftermath, from the Second World War to the early 1990s
Swimming Against the Tide by Said Khatibi was announced today as the winner of the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). The novel, published by Hachette Antoine, was named as this year’s winner by Chair of Judges Mohamed Elkadhi via an online announcement.
The judges selected the winning book from 137 submitted titles as the best novel published in Arabic between July 2024 and June 2025.
The novel follows two parallel stories in Algiers: a female ophthalmologist who restores her patients' sight with corneas stolen from dead bodies is arrested for the murder of her husband, while her father, a former freedom fighter, is accused of collaboration with the former French occupier. As the narratives converge, it traces Algeria’s history from the Second World War to the Black Decade of the 1990s (the Algerian Civil War), including the War of Liberation and its aftermath.
In a film produced by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Said Khatibi said:
“The character of Aqeela in the novel not only attempts to save her patients by restoring their sight; she also strives to save a society by helping it see things as they truly are. Placing an investigation into a crime right at the beginning of the novel serves as a gateway to exploring and understanding a greater crime, a societal ill, spanning several decades.”
Mohamed Elkadhi, Chair of the 2026 judges, said:
“Swimming Against the Tide is a captivating novel that lives up to its title, subtly probing the origins of the Black Decade in Algeria by swimming against the current of history. Said Khatibi presents us with fragments of a complex, hazy picture that the reader must reconstruct and rearrange in order to arrive at a meaning that encapsulates this elusive historical moment.
In sensitive prose that strikes a balance between the everyday and the literary, the personal and the collective intertwine in a novel peopled by complex characters, both cruel and fragile. It is a novel to be devoured with relish, yet in its piercing scrutiny of unspoken and thwarted human pains and desires, it also leaves a bitter taste.”
Professor Yasir Suleiman, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said:
“Swimming Against the Tide is deceptively cast in the form of a crime thriller to probe key moments in Algerian history, from the War of Independence (1956-62) through the decades that followed, up to the onset of the civil strife, known as the Black Decade in the early 1990s. Told through two intertwined, intergenerational narratives, those of a daughter and her father, the novel’s intricate movement back and forth through time reveals the tensions and conflicts Algerians underwent in that period, as if to suggest that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Behavioural patterns are repeated, variations on the same maladies in society are recycled and the interminable wait for a Godot-like saviour remains illusory. The novel succeeds in drawing the reader into the intersecting narratives through deftly structured storytelling that keeps the reader searching for answers until the very end.”
Based in Slovenia, Said Khatibi is an Algerian novelist and journalist, educated at the University of Algiers and the Sorbonne. He is the award‑winning author of Forty Years Waiting for Isabel (2016), winner of the 2017 Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel, Firewood of Sarajevo (2018), IPAF-shortlisted in 2020, and The End of the Desert (2022), winner of the 2023 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
This marks the second time the author has been recognised by the prize and makes him its first Algerian winner since 2020, when he was also shortlisted. The novel is published by Hachette Antoine.
Alongside Said Khatibi, the 2026 shortlist features novels by Ahmad Abdulatif (Egypt), Najwa Barakat (Lebanon), Doaa Ibrahim (Egypt), Diaa Jubaili (Iraq), and Amin Zaoui (Algeria).
The panel of five judges was chaired by Tunisian researcher and critic, Mohamed Elkadhi. Joining him on the judging panel were Palestinian writer and translator Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Bahraini academic and critic Dheya Alkaabi, South Korean academic Laila Hyewon Baek, and Iraqi writer and translator Shakir Nouri.
The aim of IPAF is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally through the translation and publication of winning, shortlisted or longlisted novels in other major languages.
The prize is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
الرجاء الانتظار ...