Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin was announced the winner of Le Prix de la Littérature Arabe 2020 for his novel Les Jango, which was translated from Arabic to French by Xavier Luffin, on November 9, 2020.
The Prix de la Littérature Arabe, created in 2013 by the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation and the Institut Du Monde Arabe, is awarded to a writer, a national of a member country of the Arab League and author of a published book – novel, collection of short stories or poems – written in French or translated from Arabic into French. It is the only French award distinguishing Arab literary creation with the winner endowed 10,000 euros.
Previous winners have been Jabbour Douaihy (2013), Mohammed al-Fakharany (2014), Mohammed Hasan Alwan (2015), Inaam Kachachi (2016), Sinan Antoon (2017), Omar Robert Hamilton (2018), and Mohammed Abdelnabi (2019).
The 2020 prize was judged by co-chairs Pierre Leroy and Alexandre Najjar alongside Nada Al Hassan, Mahi Binebine, Mustapha Bouhayati, Gilles Gauthier, Kaoutar Harchi, Houda Ibrahim, and Nathalie Sfeir.
The jury said that Les Jango was “a novel of surprising verve and political force,” wherein the author “knits together fantasy and humor in a very skillfully constructed plot.”
Read more about this win at our friends at Arablit.org.
