Sarajevo Firewood, which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) award in 2020, explores the legacy of the recent histories of two countries - Algeria and Bosnia-Herzegovina - both of which experienced traumatic, and ultimately futile, civil wars in the 1990s. The novel narrates the lives of two main characters, with their friends and families: Salim, an Algerian journalist, and Ivana, a young Bosnian woman, both of whom have fled the destruction and hatred of their own countries to try to build a new life in Slovenia. As Ivana pursues her goal of writing her 'dream play', Khatibi's novel brings to life in fictional form the memories and experiences of the countless ordinary people who survived the atrocities linking the two countries. As such, it represents both a lasting memorial to the thousands of dead and 'disappeared' of the two countries' civil conflicts, but also a powerful and novel exploration of the experience of exile to which so many have been subjected over the last few decades.

About the Author
Said Khatibi is a novelist, travel writer, translator and cultural journalist, born in 1984 in Bou Saada, Algeria. He writes in Arabic and French and translates between both. He has a BA in French Literature from the University of Algiers and an MA in Cultural Studies from the Sorbonne. He has three novels in Arabic: Sarajevo Firewood, which was shortlisted for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Kitab al-Khataya (Book of Errors) Editions ANEP, 2013, and (Forty Years Waiting for Isabelle), 2016, about the real-life Swiss traveller Isabelle Eberhardt (1877 1904), for which he won the 2018 Katara Award for the Novel. His travel book about the Balkans, (The Inflamed Gardens of the East), 2015, was excerpted in Banipal 66 (2019). He lives in Slovenia. Paul Starkey is an award-winning translator and Emeritus Professor of Arabic, Durham University, UK. His most recent literary translations are Praise for the Women of the Family by Mahmoud Shukair, Fractured Destinies by Rabai Al-Madhoun, and The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa, for which he won the 2017 Hamad Translation Award. Other translations include works by Youssef Rakha (The Book of the Sultan's Seal), Adania Shibli (We Are All Equally Far From Love), Rashid al-Daif (Dear Mr Kawabata), Edwar al-Kharrat (Stones of Bobello), Turki al-Hamad (Shumaisi), Mansoura Ez Eldin (Maryam's Maze), Jurji Zaydan (Saladin and the Assassins) and Mahdi Issa al-Saqr (East Winds, West Winds).

Awards
Short-listed for International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2020.



Book Information
ISBN 9781913043230
Author Said Khatibi
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Banipal Books
Publisher Banipal Books
Weight(grams) 280g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 23mm