NEWS
Arabic Booker Prize Selects Dean of UOB’s College of Arts for Its 2026 Judging Panel
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) known as (Arabic Booker), has selected Dr. Dheya Abdulla Al Kaabi, Dean of the College of Arts at the University of Bahrain (UOB) and Associate Professor of Modern Literary Criticism and Narratology, to serve on the judging panel for its 2026 award.
The IPAF is one of the most prestigious literary prizes dedicated to the Arabic novel in the Arab world. Launched in 2007 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the prize is headquartered in London. It is organized with funding from the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, part of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and is held under the patronage of the British Booker Prize Foundation.
Dr. Dheyaa Abdulla Al Kaabi is a Bahraini academic and critic specializing in cultural narratology, the history of critical ideas, discourse analysis, feminist studies, and classical and modern narrative studies. She has established and developed her own cultural narratology project. She holds a PhD in Arabic Language and Literature, specializing in Modern Literary Criticism and Narratology, from the University of Jordan and currently serves as Dean of the College of Arts at the University of Bahrain.
Dr. Al Kaabi has a distinguished scholarly record, comprising numerous peer-reviewed research papers and academic publications. Her notable works include Arabic Classical Narrative: Cultural Paradigms and Hermeneutical Challenges; Arabic Folk Narratology: Cultural Representations and Interpretation; and Polemical Discourse in Arab Culture: Interpretive Approaches. She also contributed to the five-volume encyclopedia Bahraini Folktales: One Thousand and One Tales – A Collective Collection and Documentation Project (2019), and has co-authored and edited several collaborative books. In 2023, Dr. Al Kaabi contributed five books to the project of the Uyun al Shi’r al Arabi (Springs of Arab Poetry) project published by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre.
