Jordanian-Palestinian Dystopian Novel Wins Arab Booker Prize

Jordanian-Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah poses for a photo after winning the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. (AFP)
Jordanian-Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah poses for a photo after winning the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. (AFP)
TT
20

Jordanian-Palestinian Dystopian Novel Wins Arab Booker Prize

Jordanian-Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah poses for a photo after winning the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. (AFP)
Jordanian-Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah poses for a photo after winning the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. (AFP)

Jordanian-Palestinian writer Ibrahim Nasrallah’s “The Second War of the Dog” won on Tuesday the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), the most prestigious annual Arab award for novel-writing, currently in its 11th edition.

His dystopian novel, published by Arab Scientific Publishers, beat out five other shortlisted candidates from each of Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Palestine.

Each of the shortlisted entries were awarded $10,000, while the winner was presented with an additional $50,000 during a ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. The novel will also be translated into English.

Before the winner was announced, head of the jury Jordanian theater critic Ibrahim al-Saafin was quoted by Reuters as saying: “These novels tackle social, political, humanitarian and existential issues.”

The nominated novels “strongly address current problems and crises facing Arabs,” he added.

They tackle the major challenges hindering man’s progress and liberation from fear, elimination and oppression, expressing a yearning for freedom, justice and equality, he continued.

Nasrallah's book was chosen from among 124 entries from 14 countries for the award, which is affiliated with Britain's prestigious Man Booker Prize.

He told the IPAF after his shortlising: “The novel was written to provoke the reader, to worry the reader, to even, sometimes, make them breathless. ‘The Second War of the Dog’ is, in my opinion, a warning of what we could become in the future.”

“The novel starts off at the moment of a loss of certainty, that loss of trust in those whom you interact closely with – that neighbor, brother, father, or whoever it may be. The novel suggests that if we continue on our current path, we will reach a future where we would become mostly annihilistic,” he told IPAF according to its official website.

IPAF was launched in Abu Dhabi in 2007. It handed out its first prize to Egyptian novelist Bahaa Dhaher in 2008. Successive winners have come from Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.



Japan Births in 2024 Fell Below 700,000 for First Time 

People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)
People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)
TT
20

Japan Births in 2024 Fell Below 700,000 for First Time 

People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)
People walk along a pedestrian crossing at a shopping street Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP)

The number of births in Japan last year fell below 700,000 for the first time on record, government data showed Wednesday.

The fast-ageing nation welcomed 686,061 newborns in 2024 -- 41,227 fewer than in 2023, the data showed. It was the lowest figure since records began in 1899.

Japan has the world's second-oldest population after tiny Monaco, according to the World Bank.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has called the situation a "quiet emergency", pledging family-friendly measures like more flexible working hours to try and reverse the trend.

Wednesday's health ministry data showed that Japan's total fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman is expected to have -- also fell to a record low of 1.15.

The ministry said Japan saw 1.6 million deaths in 2024, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier.

Ishiba has called for the revitalization of rural regions, where shrinking elderly villages are becoming increasingly isolated.

In more than 20,000 communities in Japan, the majority of residents are aged 65 and above, according to the internal affairs ministry.

The country of 123 million people is also facing increasingly severe worker shortages as its population ages, not helped by relatively strict immigration rules.

In neighboring South Korea, the fertility rate in 2024 was even lower than Japan's, at 0.75 -- remaining one of the world's lowest but marking a small rise from the previous year on the back of a rise in marriages.