Ibrahim Nasrallah has been named laureate of the $50,000 2025 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, awarded in alternating years with the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature and recognizing "outstanding literary merit in literature worldwide." The award is sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today and was announced by Kathy Neustadt during the annual Neustadt Lit Fest. The next Lit Fest will be held in Nasrallah’s honor in fall 2026.
Nasrallah was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1954 to Palestinian parents uprooted in 1948. Raised in the Al-Wehdat refugee camp, he began his career as a teacher in Saudi Arabia. A poet, novelist, painter, and photographer, Nasrallah has published more than 40 works, including novels that form part of his celebrated Palestinian Comedy series. His writing, deeply rooted in themes of exile, identity, and resistance, has been translated into multiple languages, earning him international acclaim as one of the most important voices in contemporary Arab literature.
His novel Time of White Horses (2016), published in English translation by Hoopoe, has been selected as the representative text for the prize. Thomas Willshire, executive director of the American University in Cairo Press, said, "The AUC Press is proud that author Ibrahim Nasrallah and his novel, published under our Hoopoe literary imprint, have received such distinguished recognition. Time of White Horses tells a deeply moving story rooted in Palestinian history and identity, exactly the kind of powerful, boundary-crossing narrative that embodies Hoopoe's mission to bring distinguished voices from the Middle East to readers around the world."
The Press has published four of Nasrallah's novels, including Gaza Weddings (Hoopoe, 2017) and The Lanterns of the King of Galilee (Hoopoe, 2015).