Mohamed Alnaas

Mohamed Alnaas is a Libyan novelist born in 1985. He is one of the most important voices in contemporary Libyan literature, working in a context of immense political instability following the 2011 revolution and the subsequent civil conflict. His fiction engages with the ordinary lives of Libyan people against this background of upheaval. Alnaas published his debut novel to significant Arab literary attention before winning the IPAF in 2022 for Bread on Uncle Milad's Table (Khubz ala Tawilat Amm Milad). Set in Libya during a moment of political and social dislocation, the novel follows a man whose masculinity and social identity are challenged when he loses his job and his wife becomes the family breadwinner. The novel is a comic but incisive examination of gender roles, economic anxiety, and social pressure in contemporary Arab society. The novel was praised for its humor, its social observation, and its ability to find depth and comedy in everyday experience. It brought significant international attention to Libyan fiction, a literature that has received relatively little international exposure. Alnaas is one of a younger generation of Arab writers who are transforming the landscape of Arabic fiction with work that is socially engaged, formally inventive, and deeply human.