Kuwaiti Abdullah Al-Husseini Wins Ghassan Kanafani Award for Arab Novel

Kuwaiti novelist Abdullah Al-Husseini won the Ghassan Kanafani Award for Arab Novel today, Monday, in its third edition, named after one of the most influential Palestinian figures in journalism and literature. Al-Husseini received the award for his novel "Baqi Al-Washm," published by Takween Publications in Kuwait in 2022. Five novels made it to the short list for this year’s award, announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture in June, featuring works from Egypt, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait, and the Palestinian territories. Al-Husseini stated in a video message after winning the award, published by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture on its Facebook page: "The entire novel is resistance—resistance of the self, oppression, impotence, failure, and alienation, resistance to the margins and the official narrative, and in its simplest forms... resistance to ugliness." The Palestinian Ministry of Culture launched the award in 2022 on the fiftieth anniversary of Ghassan Kanafani's assassination (1936-1972), with the previous two years’ winners being Egyptian Amr Hussein and Syrian Al-Mugheera Al-Huwaidi. Earlier today, the Palestinian Writers’ Union commemorated the fifty-second anniversary of Kanafani's passing. The union stated in a statement: "Endless years and successive generations, you remain the high bridge of Palestine, the adornment of its martyr youth, and you have been present in every battle and at every confrontation, for the pure blood that bled from you illuminates our determination, and your departure does not diminish your revolutionary and creative presence, as you remain a significant name among the immortal names of Palestine."