Jalal Barjas | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) 2021 -voittajaromaani.

"Set in Jordan and Moscow between 1947 and 2019, Notebooks of the Bookseller tells the story of Ibrahim, a bookseller and voracious reader, who loses his shop and finds himself on the street. Experiencing schizophrenia, he assumes the identities of the protagonists of the novels he loved, to commit a series of crimes of burglary, theft and murder. He attempts suicide, before meeting the woman who will change his life. This story and others are told through a series of notebooks and multiple narrators whose paths sometimes collide. It is the painful, fragmented tale of marginalised people who are ignored or invisible to others, while a corrupt ruling class thrives. Against this background, the importance of the house is highlighted, as a symbol of the homeland. Barjas’s novel audaciously tackles a difficult reality not just in Jordan but the Arab world as a whole."