Arab Novelists at SIBF: Fiction Rewrites History and Honors the Margins

Prominent Arab novelists emphasized that fiction remains one of the most powerful arts capable of deconstructing social and cultural structures and reimagining human consciousness by giving voice to marginalized identities and forgotten histories.

The discussion, titled “The Novel as a Narrative Space for Exploring Identity, Margins, and Human History,” took place during the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair and featured acclaimed authors Dr. Shukri Al Mabkhout, Algerian novelist Seddik Haj Ahmed, and Dr. Maryam Al Hashimi.

Al Mabkhout, winner of the 2015 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, said, “History itself is a narrative, and when the novel engages with it, it doesn’t merely repeat it—it rewrites it from new perspectives.”

Haj Ahmed explored the evolution of “the margin” in Arabic literature, linking his works “The Kingdom of Ziyuan” and “Camarade” to themes of identity, exile, and African-Arab intersections.

Dr. Al Hashimi described the novel as “a living organism that mirrors the complexity of human identity and history,” calling it “a creative act of rethinking ourselves and our collective memory.”