Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author who has lived in France since 1976.
14 Facts About Amin Maalouf
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.
3.
Amin Maalouf's father was from the Melkite Catholic community near the village of Baskinta in Ain el Qabou.
4.
Amin Maalouf 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.
5.
Amin Maalouf's mother was a staunch Maronite Catholic who insisted on sending him to College Notre Dame de Jamhour, a French Jesuit school.
6.
Amin Maalouf studied sociology at the Francophone Universite Saint-Joseph in Beirut.
7.
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.
8.
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.
9.
In 1993, Amin Maalouf was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Rock of Tanios, set in 19th-century Lebanon.
10.
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.
11.
Amin Maalouf is the first person of Lebanese heritage to receive that honor.
12.
Amin Maalouf was given the honor by President Emmanuel Macron.
13.
Amin Maalouf's novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration.
14.
All Amin Maalouf's librettos have been written for the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.