The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) (Booker), announced, on Thursday, the short list for 2017, which included six novels from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Iraq and Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the organizing committee for the award faced much criticism because of the timing of the announcement of the winners and its mechanism, which is similar to Altayeb Salih Prize for Creative Writing announcement.

The head of the jury, Sahar Khalifa, said in a statement that among the huge number of novels (186 novel), which submitted to the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, we chose six novels due to its aesthetics in terms of its characters and  sensitive topics, which dug up the untold story, and the other dealing with crises of the Arab complex situation, as celebrates the bright aspects of Arab heritage. 

The novels include "Fe Ghorfet Elankabout" (in the spider room) for the Egyptian writer, Mohamed Abdul Nabi, the novel of "Mout Sagheir" (Short Death) for the Saudi writer Mohammed Hassan Alwan, "Sabilliat"(Ways) for the Kuwaiti writer Ismail Fahad Ismail, "Zaraieb al-Abied" (Slaves' zareba) for Libyan Najwa bin Shatwan, (Killing bookseller) for Iraqi Saad Mohammad Rahim and (the children of the Ghetto) for the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury.

Each candidate, among the six candidates, gets 10 thousand dollars, while the winner gets 50 thousand dollars extra. 

The jury included in its membership the Libyan novelist and TV presenter Fatima Hajji, the Palestinian translator Saleh Almany, translator Sofia Vassallo, and the Egyptian writer Sahar al-Mougy.
 
The announcement of the winner scheduled to be in 25 April, in a ceremony in Abu Dhabi, during the opening of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

IPAF is an annual award specializes in the field of novelist creativity in Arabic and sponsored Booker Prize Foundation in London and Abu Dhabi Authority for Tourism and Culture in the UAE.