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The Palestinian novelist and poet Ibrahim Nasrallah has won the 2025 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards.
The honor comes in recognition of his rich literary career and his profound works that address humanitarian and national issues, foremost among them, the Palestinian cause.
The University of Oklahoma’s Neustadt Prize Committee announced Nasrallah’s win in the 29th edition of the award.
In its statement, the committee praised his remarkable ability to weave together personal and collective experiences in his works, portraying the human struggle for dignity, freedom, and justice.
It affirmed that Nasrallah’s works “offer readers a window through which they can see the real Palestine and reshape human consciousness toward it.”
It added that through his writings, he has “transformed the Palestinian memory into a universal literary act, rather than a merely local one.”
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature, valued at $50,000, is among the world’s most prestigious literary honors, awarded for outstanding achievements in global literature.
Notably, many of its past laureates have later gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The winner also receives a certificate of recognition and a silver eagle feather sculpture during an official ceremony held at the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 2026.
In his remarks following the announcement of his win, Nasrallah said the award “represents a victory for the Palestinian narrative at a time when genocide is being committed against the Palestinian people.”
He added that the prize “opens a new window for Palestinian literature to be heard globally—not merely as literature of suffering, but as a form of human creativity capable of touching hearts everywhere.”
Nasrallah was born in 1954 in Amman to a Palestinian family displaced from the village of al-Burayj near Hebron.
Raised in the al-Wehdat refugee camp, he began his career as a teacher in Saudi Arabia, where he also started writing poetry and fiction at an early age.
Over his career, he has published more than 40 works, including poetry, novels, and literary criticism, including novels that form part of his celebrated "Palestinian Comedy" series.
His most notable project, the “Palestinian Comedy” series, spans more than 10 volumes and is regarded as one of the most significant narrative undertakings in modern Arabic literature, chronicling the history and struggles of the Palestinian people.
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