14 Facts About Amin Maalouf

1.

Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author who has lived in France since 1976.

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2.

Amin Maalouf received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios, as well as the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature.

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3.

Amin Maalouf was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in the Badaro cosmopolitan neighborhood, the second of four children.

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4.

Amin Maalouf's father was from the Melkite Catholic community near the village of Baskinta in Ain el Qabou.

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5.

Amin Maalouf's was born in Egypt and lived there for many years before coming back to Lebanon; she lived in France until her passing in 2021 at the age of 100 years.

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6.

Amin Maalouf's mother was a staunch Maronite Catholic who insisted on sending him to College Notre Dame de Jamhour, a French Jesuit school.

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7.

Amin Maalouf studied sociology at the Francophone Universite Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

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8.

Amin 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, which became his permanent home.

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9.

Amin Maalouf has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Catholic University of Louvain, the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), the Rovira i Virgili University (Spain), the University of Evora (Portugal), and the University of Ottawa (Canada).

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10.

In 1993, Amin Maalouf was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Rock of Tanios, set in 19th-century Lebanon.

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11.

Amin Maalouf was elected a member of the Academie francaise on 23 June 2011 to fill seat 29, left vacant by the death of anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.

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12.

Amin Maalouf is the first person of Lebanese heritage to receive that honor.

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13.

Amin Maalouf's novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration.

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14.

All Amin Maalouf's librettos have been written for the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

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