Lebanese-American author Rabih Alameddine has won the prestigious 2025 National Book Award for Fiction for his novel, “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother),” a darkly comic epic that explores six decades of a Lebanese family's history. The announcement was made at the 76th National Book Awards ceremony in New York on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

Alameddine's novel delves into the life of a gay 63-year-old philosophy teacher in Beirut as he navigates his relationship with his mother, his past, and his homeland against the backdrop of Lebanon's civil war and economic collapse. Published by Grove Press, the book has been praised by critics as a “sharp exploration of resilience in dark times.”

The author, who was born in Jordan to Lebanese Druze parents and now divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut, is known for works that explore themes of identity, displacement, and cultural intersections. His previous novels include "The Wrong End of the Telescope," which won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

A Politically Charged Ceremony

The awards ceremony was marked by a series of politically charged acceptance speeches, with several winners using the platform to address global conflicts and social justice issues. In his speech, Alameddine drew attention to recent events of violence.

“This morning I saw two videos,” he stated, according to reports from the event on Wednesday night, which corresponds to the early hours of Thursday, November 20 in East Africa Time. “One was of an ICE agent. The woman was on the asphalt, zip-tied. He came over and zapped her, and then carried her like garbage and threw her in the back of the SUV.”

He continued by referencing a second video of a bombed Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon where 12 people died. “And I kept thinking: they make a desolation and call it a ceasefire. Sometimes, as writers, we have to say: enough,” Alameddine concluded, capping a speech that also included his trademark irreverent humour, thanking his psychiatrist, doctors, and drug dealers.

His comments echoed the tone set by other winners. Omar El Akkad, who won the nonfiction award for “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” a book responding to the war in Gaza, stated it was “very difficult to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to a genocide.” Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, accepting the award for translated literature, began her speech in Spanish, declaring, “I'm going to speak in Spanish because there are fascists who don't like that.”

Global Resonance, Local Silence

While the National Book Awards are a significant event in the American literary calendar, their direct impact on Kenya and the broader East African region is minimal. There are no discernible direct ties between Alameddine's work and the region, nor were there specific mentions of East African affairs during the ceremony. However, the themes of political instability, economic hardship, and the search for identity in a post-colonial world, central to Alameddine's novel, resonate with historical and contemporary challenges across many African nations.

The strong political statements from the winners, particularly concerning state violence and international conflicts, reflect a global trend of artists and writers engaging more directly with political discourse. This trend has parallels in Kenya and East Africa, where artists and activists often use their platforms to comment on governance, human rights, and social justice issues. The focus on crises in the Middle East and US domestic policy at the awards highlights a specific set of global concerns currently dominating international headlines.

Other 2025 Winners

The National Book Foundation, which presents the awards, announced winners in five categories. The other winners for 2025 were:

• Nonfiction: Omar El Akkad for “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.”
• Poetry: Patricia Smith for “The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems.”
• Translated Literature: “We Are Green and Trembling” by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Robin Myers.
• Young People's Literature: Daniel Nayeri for “The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story.”

Honorary awards were also presented to author George Saunders and author-publisher Roxane Gay for their contributions to the American literary community.