A short life of the author
Hoda Barakat (born 1952) is a Lebanese-French novelist whose fiction has transformed the Arabic novel’s treatment of war, gender, and exile. Her work, set largely against the Lebanese Civil War and its aftermath, is distinguished by formally inventive prose and by its insistence on portraying male vulnerability and failure — a deliberate subversion of both heroic war narratives and patriarchal literary conventions.
Life and Career
Barakat grew up in Beirut and studied French literature at the Lebanese University before emigrating to Paris in 1989, where she has lived since. Her exile — and the impossibility of return — is a central theme of her fiction.
Hajar al-dahik (The Stone of Laughter, 1990) was her debut — a novel set in besieged Beirut following a young homosexual man who tries to remain neutral in the civil war. The novel was radical in Arabic fiction for its sympathetic portrayal of homosexuality and its refusal to assign its protagonist to any faction. It won the Al-Naqid Prize.
Ahl al-hawa (Disciples of Passion, 1993) and Harith al-miyah (The Tiller of Waters, 2000) continued to explore the civil war through the lives of marginalized men — a fabric merchant, a linen trader — whose obsessions and failures became metaphors for Lebanon’s collapse. The prose was richly textured, drawing on Arabic literary traditions while incorporating modernist techniques.
Barid al-layl (Voices of the Lost, 2018) was her masterwork — an epistolary novel composed of letters written by people in transit: refugees, exiles, and displaced persons whose messages never arrive. The novel won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the “Arabic Booker”) in 2019 and was praised for its structural ingenuity and emotional depth.
Key Works
- The Stone of Laughter (1990)
- The Tiller of Waters (2000)
- Voices of the Lost (2018)
Collecting Barakat
Arabic first editions (Dar al-Nahar, Riad El-Rayyes) are published in small runs. English translations (Interlink, Oneworld) bring $15–$30. The Arabic Booker win in 2019 raised her international profile significantly. Barakat is one of the most important living Arabic novelists, and her work is increasingly taught in comparative literature programs.