Six novels from a field of 143
The American University in Cairo Press published the six-book shortlist for the 2026 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature on 1 September, selected from 143 novels submitted across 23 countries, according to CairoScene. Three of the six finalists are Egyptian writers, and the other three represent Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Palestine.
The shortlist places Saudi novelist Abdullah Nasser's This Is Not a Bullet alongside Iraqi writer Inaam Kachachi's A Swiss Summer and Palestinian author Mohamed Jubaiti's No Mail to Gaza, Arab News reported. The three Egyptian entries are Ahmad Abdulatif's The Origin of the Species, Ganna Adel's Longa-Cairo Nuweiba and Talal Faisal's An Old Egyptian Madness. The six novels were published by six different regional presses, including Hayat Publishing, Diwan Publishing and Dar Al Adab, CairoScene reported.
The pool of 143 submissions came from 23 countries across the Arab world and beyond, Arab News reported, giving the judging panel a wide field to narrow down to a shortlist of just six titles this cycle.
- This Is Not a Bullet — Abdullah Nasser (Saudi Arabia), published by Al Karma Publishers.
- The Origin of the Species — Ahmad Abdulatif (Egypt), published by Hayat Publishing.
- Longa-Cairo Nuweiba — Ganna Adel (Egypt), published by Waziz Books.
- A Swiss Summer — Inaam Kachachi (Iraq), published by Al Dar Al Masriah Al Lubnaniah.
- No Mail to Gaza — Mohamed Jubaiti (Palestine), published by Dar Al Adab.
- An Old Egyptian Madness — Talal Faisal (Egypt), published by Diwan Publishing.
AUC Press, based in Cairo, administers the medal and is the first publisher to translate Naguib Mahfouz's novels into English, according to Arab News. That keeps the prize anchored in Egypt even as its finalists this year span Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Palestine alongside three Egyptian novelists.
What each novel is about
Nasser's novel follows a narrator whose childhood memory of his father firing a bullet leads him to an old court case and a set of family secrets, guilt and old wounds, according to Arab News. Born in 1981, Nasser has previously published two short-story collections, The Art of Letting Go and Stuck on a Sunday. Abdulatif's The Origin of the Species draws on Darwin's theory of evolution to imagine a post-human era in which characters lose physical traits and emotions, mirrored by a transformed Cairo, CairoScene reported. Arab News described the novel as blurring the boundaries between the living and the dead, and between the human and the inhuman.
Adel's Longa-Cairo Nuweiba follows a woman named Asia, according to Arab News, as she leaves a troubled life in Cairo for Sinai, moving between jobs and social circles over nearly eight years, told through prose, letters and diary entries, CairoScene reported. Kachachi's A Swiss Summer brings together four Iraqi refugees in Basel, invited by the European Parliament into a psychiatrist's programme that examines their conflicting views of Iraq's past. Jubaiti's No Mail to Gaza follows a parkour-practising gravedigger navigating isolation, loss and unfulfilled dreams in Gaza, with the absence of mail standing in for the territory's isolation. Faisal's An Old Egyptian Madness centres on a history professor who uncovers manuscripts describing a Mamluk-era court seized by a guardian ruling in place of a child sultan, amid what Arab News described as treachery, madness and intrigue.
The judging panel
The panel is chaired by Hoda Elsadda, a professor of English and comparative literature at Cairo University and a co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum, Arab News reported. Its members include Hammour Ziada, the Sudanese novelist who won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal itself in 2014, alongside other scholars, journalists and literary translators. The panel's task each year is to reduce that international pool to a shortlist of six titles this cycle.
What the prize is worth
The winning novelist receives a $5,000 cash prize, Arab News reported. AUC Press describes itself as the first publisher to translate Mahfouz's novels into English, and it translates and publishes the winning novel for English-speaking readers worldwide. The winner will be announced on 11 December, the birthday of Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel laureate the medal is named for, according to CairoScene and Arab News.
The medal was established in 1996, according to CairoScene, and recent winners include Mohammed Tarazi for Muted Microphone in 2024, Fatma Qandil for Empty Cages in 2022 and Ahmed Taibaoui for The Disappearance of Mr Nobody in 2021. Each of those winning novels also received an English translation from AUC Press, the same publisher handling this year's prize.
Naguib Mahfouz Medal 2026 shortlist: key details
How many novels were submitted this year?
The 2026 cycle drew 143 novels from 23 countries across the Arab world and beyond, according to CairoScene and Arab News. The judging panel narrowed that field to the six-book shortlist.
Who chairs the judging panel?
Hoda Elsadda, a professor of English and comparative literature at Cairo University and co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum, chairs the panel, Arab News reported. Sudanese novelist Hammour Ziada, who won the medal himself in 2014, is also among its members.
What does the winner receive?
The winning novelist receives a $5,000 cash prize, Arab News reported, plus an English translation of the novel published by AUC Press for readers across the English-speaking world, extending the novel's reach beyond Arabic-language audiences.
When will the winner be announced?
The winner will be named on 11 December, the birthday of Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel laureate the medal is named for, according to CairoScene and Arab News.
Which countries are represented on the shortlist?
The six-book list spans Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine. Three of the six novels are by Egyptian authors — Ahmad Abdulatif, Ganna Adel and Talal Faisal — while the other three are by Abdullah Nasser of Saudi Arabia, Inaam Kachachi of Iraq and Mohamed Jubaiti of Palestine.
