Zahran Alqasmi

Zahran Alqasmi is an Omani novelist born in 1978. He is one of the most important voices in Omani and Gulf Arabic literature, known for fiction that draws on the landscape, history, and culture of Oman with poetic intensity. His work is recognized for its lyrical prose and its deep engagement with the natural and human landscape of the Omani interior. Alqasmi has published several novels that have received recognition within the Arab literary world. The Exile of the Water Diviner (Manfa al-Mahayis), his IPAF-winning novel of 2023, is set in the Omani desert and follows a water diviner whose gift and isolation define his existence. The novel is a meditation on knowledge, community, and the landscape of the Arabian Peninsula. The novel was praised for the beauty of its prose, its intimate knowledge of the Omani landscape, and its construction of a protagonist who embodies a traditional knowledge system threatened by modernity. Alqasmi is a significant voice in the literature of the Gulf, bringing the specific landscape and culture of Oman to the pan-Arab literary conversation.