Jabbour Douaihy

Jabbour Douaihy (1949-2021) was born in Zgharta, northern Lebanon. He obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature from the Sorbonne and was Professor of French Literature at the University of Lebanon. He published nine novels, as well as short stories and children’s books. His first novel, Autumn Equinox (1995) won the Translation of Arabic Literature Award given by the University of Arkansas, USA. His fourth novel June Rain (2008) was shortlisted for the inaugural IPAF in 2008 and later published in English, French, Italian and German. He was shortlisted again for the Prize in 2012, for his fifth novel The Vagrant, which won the Hanna Wakim Prize for the Lebanese novel. Its French edition won the 2013 Prize awarded by the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris for the best work of fiction translated from Arabic to French. His novel The American Quarter (2014) reached the IPAF longlist in 2015 and was published in English. His eighth novel, The King of India (2019), was shortlisted for the Prize in 2020 and also published in English.