Amin Maalouf (; ; born 1949) is a Lebanese French author who has lived in France since 1976. His native language is Arabic, and he writes in French. His works have been translated into over 40 languages.
Of his several works of nonfiction, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is probably the best known. and was elected its Perpetual Secretary on 28 September 2023.
Biography
Maalouf was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in the Badaro cosmopolitan neighbourhood, the second of four children. His mother, of Turkish ancestry, was from Egypt, and his father was a Melkite Catholic from the village of Machrah. He studied sociology and economics at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut.
He is the uncle of trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.
Career
Maalouf worked as the director of An-Nahar, a Beirut-based daily newspaper, until the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, when he moved to Paris, where he first became a journalist for an economic newspaper. Maalouf's first book, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1983), examines the period based on contemporaneous Arabic sources. In 2004, the original, French edition of his Origins: A Memoir (Origines, 2004) won the Prix Méditerranée.
In 2010, he received the Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for Literature for his work, an intense mix of suggestive language, historic affairs in a Mediterranean mosaic of languages, cultures and religions and stories of tolerance and reconciliation. He was elected a member of the Académie française on 23 June 2011 to fill seat 29, left vacant by the death of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. Maalouf is the first person of Lebanese heritage to receive that honour.
In 2016, he won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for "Cultural Personality of the Year", the premier category with a prize of 1 million dirhams (approx. US$272,000). In the same year, the University of Venice Ca' Foscari awarded him the Bauer-Incroci di civiltà prize for fostering cultural dialogue between civilizations.
In 2020, he was awarded the National Order of Merit by the French government. He was given the honour by President Emmanuel Macron.
In 2021, Maalouf was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.
In 2025, Maalouf received the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages during the Guadalajara International Book Fair.
Honours and decorations
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"
|-
! style="width:80px;"| Ribbon bar !! Country !! Honour
|-
| 70px || || Knight First class of the Order of the Lion of Finland
|-
| 70px || || Officier of the Legion of Honour
|-
| Ordre national du Merite GO ribbon|70px || || Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit
|-
| 70px || || Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
|-
| | 70px || || Grand Cordon of the National Order of the Cedar
|-
| 70px || || Officier of the Order of Cultural Merit (Monaco)
|}
Works
Fiction
Maalouf's novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration. Their characters are itinerant voyagers between lands, languages, and religions and he prefers to write about "our past".
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" |Original
! colspan="2" |English translation
|-
|1986
|Léon l'Africain
|1992
|Leo Africanus, translated by Peter Sluglett.
|-
|1988
|Samarcande
|1994
|Samarkand, trans. Russell Harris. .
|-
|1991
|Les jardins de lumière
|1996
|The Gardens of Light, trans. Dorothy S. Blair. .
|-
|1992
|Le Premier siècle après Béatrice
|1993
|The First Century after Beatrice, trans. Dorothy S. Blair. .
|-
|1993
|Le Rocher de Tanios
|1994
|The Rock of Tanios, trans. Dorothy S. Blair .
|-
|1996
|Les Échelles du Levant
|1996
|Ports of Call, trans. Alberto Manguel. .
|-
|2000
|Le Périple de Baldassare
|2002
|Balthasar's Odyssey, trans. Barbara Bray. .
|-
|2012
|Les Désorientés
|2020
|The Disoriented, trans. Frank Wynne. .
|-
|2020
|Nos frères inattendus
|2023
|On the Isle of Antioch, trans. Natasha Lehrer. .
|}
Non-fiction
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" |Original
! colspan="2" |English translation
|-
|1983
|Les Croisades vues par les Arabes
|1986
|The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.
|-
|1998
|Les Identités meurtrières
|2000
|In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, translated by Barbara Bray. .
|-
|2004
|Origines
|2008.
|Origins: A Memoir, translated by Catherine Temerson. .
|-
|2009
|Le Dérèglement du monde
|2011
|Disordered World: Setting a New Course for the Twenty-First Century, translated by George Miller.
|-
|2019
|Le Naufrage des civilisations
|2020
|Adrift: How Our World Lost Its Way, translated by Frank Wynne.
|-
|2023
|Le Labyrinthe des égarés. L’Occident et ses adversaires
| -
|
|}
Librettos
All Maalouf's librettos have been written for the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.
- 2000. L'Amour de loin ('Love from Afar'), opera
- 2003. Adriana Mater, opera
- 2006. La Passion de Simone, oratorio
- 2010. Émilie, monodrama
References
External links
- Amin Maalouf blog