Najwa Barakat

Najwa Barakat (; born 1966, in Beirut) is a Lebanese Arab novelist, journalist and film director.

Career After achieving studies in theater (Beirut Fine Arts Institute) and cinema (French cinema Institution), she moves definitely to Paris where she works as a freelance journalist in a number of Arabic newspapers and magazines, and gathered the materials for several cultural programs produced by Radio France Internationale (RFI) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). She also prepared the first fifteen episodes of the cultural program broadcast at Aljaz, which in 2009 became an ongoing series in Beirut for young and aspiring writers. Extensions of the workshop have also been held in Manama and Dubai. Several participants have gone on to publish and win literary awards, including Rasha Atrash, Hilal Chouman, Rana Najjar and Muneera Swar.

Works The Secret Language (loughat al-sirr) Oh, Salaam (Ya-Salâm) The Tenant The Bus of Good People (Bâs el-awâdem) The Life and Passion of Hamad (hayât wa alâm Hamad ibn Siléneh) The Transformer (Al-muhawwel) Mr. N (Mistir nūn) The Absence of Mai (Ghaybat Mayy)

Awards 2015, Philippe Vigreux's French translation of The Language of Secrets was shortlisted for Prix de la Litterature Arabe

2026, The Absence of Mai was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction