Bread on Uncle Milad's Table

Bread on Uncle Milad's Table

A Novel
Mohammed Husayn Alnaas
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Description

For fans of Naguib Mahfouz's classic Cairo Trilogy and Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men, winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a heartbreaking portrait of a young Libyan from a long line of bakers who tries to live up to his society's expectations of what it means to be a man.

“Must be one of Uncle Milad’s is a well-known insult among Libyans, typically said of a ‘Milad’, a man who struggles to rein in the women who should be obedient to him. Failing to do so he sullies not only his reputation, but that of ‘his’ women.”

Milad has always found comfort in the rituals of the kitchen—the steady rhythm of preparing meals, the warmth of fresh bread, the quiet satisfaction of caring for those he loves. But in a society where a man's worth is measured by entirely different standards, he fails to live up to his father's expectations of a man.

It's only after marrying his childhood sweetheart Zainab that he can embrace being himself, performing domestic household duties while she becomes the family breadwinner. But while the unconventional arrangement suits the couple, Milad earns his village's scorn and a series of tragic events are set into motion.

Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Mohammed Alnaas's explosive debut is an unflinching but deeply compassionate novel about love, belonging, and the cost of defying what’s expected of you.

Genres

LiteraryFictionEgypt & North AfricaMiddle EastWorld LiteraturePsychological
Released2026
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
ISBN9780063323865
SellerHarperCollins

About the author(s)

Mohammed Alnaas, a novelist and freelance journalist, was born in 1991 in Tajoura, Libya. He writes about gender roles, freedom of speech, social norms, cinema, and other marginalized aspects of life in his country. In 2022, he became the youngest-ever recipient of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, which was awarded to his debut novel Bread on Uncle Milad's Table. Alnaas is an editor at alpheratzmag.com.

Sawad Hussain is an Arabic translator and litterateur with a particular passion for
bringing narratives from Africa to a wider audience. Her work has been recognized
by English PEN, the Anglo-Omani Society and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for
Arabic Literary Translation, among others. She has been a judge for, inter alia, the
Palestine Book Awards and the 2023 National Translation Award, and has run
translation workshops under the auspices of organizations as varied as Shadow
Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British
Library and the National Centre for Writing. Her most recent translations
include Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table (HarperVia) and Asad’s Secret (Levine
Querido). A former co-chair of the Translators Association in the UK, Sawad has
been the Translator in Residence at the British Centre for Literary Translation
(2022), Wasafiri (2024-25) and Princeton University (2025). In a past life, she
lectured at the IAIS at the University of Exeter, and taught Arabic (KS3 & KS4) in
Johannesburg and Dubai. She lives in Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and her
oeuvre can be further explored at www.sawadhussain.com.

Reviews

"There is so much to admire in first-time novelist Alnaas’ subtle and complete depiction of a society built on contradictory impulses, one of supposed liberation and dictatorial control, as Milad shares his experiences of infertility, outsiderness, masculinity, and love... [he] is an engaging, tragic, and complex figure whose unique perspective captivates in this wonderfully thoughtful tale." - Booklist

“Set in Gaddafi's Libya, [Bread on Uncle Milad's Table is] the tragicomic story of a man who is not man enough in the eyes of others. An excellent debut novel.” - Le Monde

“The winning novel is written in the form of confessions of personal experience. Its plethora of detail is deftly unified by a gripping narrative. This offers a deep and meticulous critique of prevailing concepts of masculinity and femininity and the division of work between men and women, and the effect of these on both a psychological and social level. It falls into the category of novels which question cultural norms about gender. However, it is embedded in its local Arab context and steers away from any ideological treatment of the issues, as such a treatment would be contrary to the way in which fiction can present multiple points of view.” - Shukri Mabkhout, Chair of the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction

“[Bread on Uncle Milad's Table] stands out for its subtle portrayal of an aspect of this patriarchal society that is rarely discussed.” - Le Journal de Quebec

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