1. 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.
12 Facts About Amin Maalouf
1. 2.
Amin Maalouf is a member of the Academie francaise and was elected its Perpetual Secretary on 28 September 2023.
3.
Amin Maalouf's mother, of Turkish ancestry, was from Egypt, and his father was a Melkite Catholic from the village of Machrah.
4.
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.
5.
Amin Maalouf has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Catholic University of Louvain, the American University of Beirut, the Rovira i Virgili University, the University of Evora, and the University of Ottawa.
6.
In 1993, Amin Maalouf was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Rock of Tanios, set in 19th-century Lebanon.
7.
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.
8.
Amin Maalouf is the first person of Lebanese heritage to receive that honour.
9.
Amin Maalouf was given the honour by President Emmanuel Macron.
10.
In 2021, Amin Maalouf was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.
11.
Amin Maalouf's novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration.
12.
All Amin Maalouf's librettos have been written for the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.