The gay author Rabih Alameddine has won the National Book Award for Fiction in the United States. His novel “The Really True Story of Rajah, the Gullible” tells its tale with a sharp wit from the perspective of a 63-year-old gay philosophy professor who looks back on his life—his relationship with his mother, his past, and his ties to Lebanon. The book is slated for a March 2026 German release by C.H.Beck.
Alameddine grew up in Kuwait, Lebanon, and England. After studying in the United States, he worked as an engineer before becoming a painter and writer. Today he divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut. In German, he has also published “An Unnecessary Woman” (2016) and the novel “The Angel of History” (2018), in which he writes with much devotion about darkrooms and fistings (book review by Fabian Schäfer).
The National Book Award, endowed with a $10,000 prize, ranks among the United States’ most important literary honors alongside the Pulitzer Prize. It was established in 1936 by the American Booksellers Association and has been awarded annually since 1950, after a wartime interruption caused by World War II.
