- RIYADH: Makkah is a holy city, but it’s also a city in transition, and Raja Alem has given a literary nod to this concept in her novel “The Dove’s Necklace,” which has just won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, also known as the “Arabic Booker.” The prize was announced on Monday.
- The Makkah native Alem — who already has several awards under her belt and considerable international recognition — will share the $100,000 reward with Moroccan novelist Mohammad Al-Ashaari, who won for his book “The Bow and the Butterfly.”
Alem said on her Facebook profile she had dedicated the prize and its bittersweet reward to the soul of her mother who passed away this month.
Alem had told Arab News before winning the prize that she felt honored to be part of what she referred to as “a prize respected all over the world.” She described the prize’s focus on Arabic novels as “igniting a spark in a dead scene.”
“The Dove’s Necklace” was published in Arabic in June 2010 and was the last to join the nomination. While Alem has expressed no interest in literary competition, her publisher persuaded her to allow the nomination of her work. Besides, she said, she supports the cause of the prize, which was formed in 2008 and is affiliated with the prestigious British Man Booker Prize Establishment.
The novel pays homage to Old Makkah, which faces the formidable challenges of modern times. In its opening pages, Alem put a voice to an alleyway in Makkah, which laments that the people disregard its experiences:
Since no one has ever concerned himself with my enlightenment I have learned to sit intoxicated in the gloom, inhaling a deep breath and trapping it for full minutes before slowly releasing it in the shape of rumors, legends and things forbidden with which I choke my inhabitants, who have begun scrabbling in their past for opiates, unable to bear their current grim reality or comprehend the atomic age that will grind them into the dust.
“The Dove’s Necklace” is a novel about a rare world that is dying. Makkah, according to Alem, is a city transformed and the book attempts to capture its last throes, its unique history and spiritual beauty and contrast these elements with its modern identity.
Alem is also participating in the 54th Venice Biennale which opens in June 2010 with a pavilion dedicated to Makkah in an exhibition entitled “The Black Arch.”
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction was first awarded in 2008 to Egyptian writer Bahaa Taher. Egyptian writer Yousif Zidan won in 2009 while Saudi writer Abdo Khal won last year’s prize.