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)
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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.



10 Endangered Black Rhinos Sent from S.Africa to Mozambique

Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
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10 Endangered Black Rhinos Sent from S.Africa to Mozambique

Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)

Ten black rhinos have been moved from South Africa to Mozambique to secure breeding of the critically endangered animals that became locally extinct 50 years ago, conservationists said Thursday.

The five male and five female rhinos were transferred to Mozambique's Zinave National Park in a 48-hour road trip last week, said the Peace Parks Foundation, which took part in the translocation.

"It was necessary to introduce these 10 to make the population viable," communication coordinator Lesa van Rooyen told AFP.

The new arrivals will "secure the first founder population of black rhinos since becoming locally extinct five decades ago,” South Africa's environment ministry, which was also involved, said in a statement.

Twelve black rhinos had previously been sent from South Africa to Zinave in central Mozambique but the population was still not viable for breeding, Van Rooyen said.

Twenty-five white rhinos, which are classified as less threatened, were also translocated in various operations.

The global black rhino population dropped by 96 percent between 1970 and 1993, reaching a low of only 2,300 surviving in the wild, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

Decades of conservation efforts allowed the species to slowly recover and the population is estimated at 6,421 today.

Once abundant across sub-Saharan Africa, rhino numbers fell dramatically due to hunting by European colonizers and large-scale poaching, with their horns highly sought after on black markets particularly in Asia.

Mozambique's population of the large animals was depleted during the 15-year civil war, which ended in 1992 and pushed many people to desperate measures to "survive in very difficult circumstances", van Rooyen said.

Years of rewilding efforts have established Zinave as Mozambique’s only national park home to the "Big Five" game animals -- elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and buffalo.