Amin Maalouf Explained

Amin Maalouf
Birth Date:1949 2, df=yes
Birth Place:Beirut, Lebanon
Occupation:Writer, scholar and novelist, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française (elected September 28, 2023)
Language:French
Notableworks:Leo Africanus, The Rock of Tanios, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Samarkand

Amin Maalouf (in French maluf/; Arabic: أمين معلوف pronounced as /ar/; born 25 February 1949) is a Lebanese-born French[1] author who has lived in France since 1976.[2] Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and 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. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios, as well as the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He is a member of the Académie française[3] and was elected its Perpetual Secretary[4] on 28 September 2023.

Background

Maalouf was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in the Badaro cosmopolitan neighbourhood,[5] the second of four children. His parents had different cultural backgrounds. His father was a Greek of the Melkite Catholic community of the village of Machrah,[6] near Baskinta in Ain el Qabou. His mother, Odette Ghossein, is Lebanese from the Metn Village of Ain el Kabou, and of Turkish descent. She 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.

Maalouf's mother was a staunch Maronite Catholic who insisted on sending him to Collège Notre Dame de Jamhour, a French Jesuit school. He studied sociology at the Francophone Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

He is the uncle of trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.[7]

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, which became his permanent home. Maalouf's first book, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1983), examines the period based on contemporaneous Arabic sources.

Along with his nonfiction work, he has written four texts for musical compositions and numerous novels.

His book Un fauteuil sur la Seine briefly recounts the lives of those who preceded him in seat #29 as a member of the Académie française.[8]

Awards

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

In 1993, Maalouf was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Rock of Tanios (French: Le rocher de Tanios), set in 19th-century Lebanon.[9] [10] [11] In 2004, the original, French edition of his Origins: A Memoir (Origines, 2004) won the Prix Méditerranée.[12]

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.[13] Maalouf is the first person of Lebanese heritage to receive that honour.[14]

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).[15] In the same year, the University of Venice Ca' Foscari awarded him the Bauer-Incroci di civiltà prize for fostering cultural dialogue between civilizations.[16]

In 2020, he was awarded the National Order of Merit by the French government. He was given the honour by President Emmanuel Macron.[17]

In 2021, Maalouf was elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer.[18]

Honours and decorations

Ribbon bar Country Honour
Knight First class of the Order of the Lion of Finland
Grand officier of the National Order of Merit
Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Grand Cordon of the National Order of the Cedar
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".

OriginalEnglish translation
1986Léon l'Africain1992Leo Africanus, translated by Peter Sluglett.
1988Samarcande1994Samarkand, trans. Russell Harris. .
1991Les jardins de lumière1996The Gardens of Light, trans. Dorothy S. Blair. .
1992Le Premier siècle après Béatrice1993The First Century after Beatrice, trans. Dorothy S. Blair. .
1993Le Rocher de Tanios[19] 1994The Rock of Tanios, trans. Dorothy S. Blair .
1996Les Échelles du Levant1996Ports of Call, trans. Alberto Manguel. .
2000Le Périple de Baldassare2002Balthasar's Odyssey, trans. Barbara Bray. .
2012Les Désorientés2020The Disoriented, trans. Frank Wynne. .
2020Nos frères inattendus2023On the Isle of Antioch, trans. Natasha Lehrer. .

Non-fiction

OriginalEnglish translation
1983Les Croisades vues par les Arabes1986The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.
1998Les Identités meurtrières2000, translated by Barbara Bray. .[20]
2004Origines2008.Origins: A Memoir, translated by Catherine Temerson. .[21]
2009Le Dérèglement du monde2011Disordered World: Setting a New Course for the Twenty-First Century, translated by George Miller.
2019Le Naufrage des civilisations2020, translated by Frank Wynne.
2023Le Labyrinthe des égarés. L’Occident et ses adversaires-

Librettos

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

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.al-bab.com/arab/literature/maalouf.htm "Amin Maalouf"
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20091009231621/http://www.aminmaalouf.net/en/about/ "About the author"
  3. "Amin MAALOUF." Académie Française.
  4. Web site: 2023-09-28 . Amin Maalouf élu secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie française . 2023-09-28 . L'Orient-Le Jour.
  5. Battah, Habib. 11 November 2012. "Amin Maalouf: a writer’s bedroom." Beirut Report.
  6. News: Jean-Claude Raspiengeas. Amin Maalouf, un Levantin désorienté. fr. La Croix. 20 April 2019.
  7. News: Olivier Nuc. Valérie Sasportas. 3 March 2017. Qui est Ibrahim Maalouf trompettiste dans la tourmente?. Le Figaro.
  8. Un fauteuil sur la Seine : Quatre siècles d'histoire de France, Grasset, 2016
  9. [Hamidou Dia|Dia, Hamidou]
  10. Reuters (9 November 1993). "Amin Maalouf wins top French book award." Toronto Star.
  11. Coppermann, Annie (9 November 1993). "Amin Maalouf, lauréat attendu du prix Goncourt" (in French). Les Echos.
  12. Web site: Prix Méditerranée. Prix. 15 January 2017. 15 April 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220415105614/http://www.prix-litteraires.net/prix/39,prix-mediterranee.html. dead.
  13. News: Le Monde. 14 June 2012 . 10 October 2015 . Amin Maalouf entre à l'Académie française .
  14. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Books/2012/Jun-14/176879-france-gives-top-honour-to-franco-lebanese-writer-maalouf.ashx#axzz29IJccobp "Lebanese novelist Amin Maalouf joins elite French Academy"
  15. News: Ghazal. Rym. Cultural Personality of the Year Award winner Amin Maalouf: 'I prefer to write about our past'. The National. 2 May 2016.
  16. Web site: 2016-03-26 . Incroci di civiltà, torna il festival di letteratura . 2024-02-13 . www.ilgazzettino.it . it.
  17. Web site: Lebanese author Amin Maalouf awarded National Order of Merit in France. Nyree. McFarlane. The National. March 2020 . en. 2020-03-02.
  18. Web site: Inaugural RSL International Writers Announced. Royal Society of Literature. 30 November 2021. 3 December 2023.
  19. Web site: Le palmarès. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20091106031016/http://www.academie-goncourt.fr/?article=4294967295. 6 November 2009. 27 November 2009. Académie Goncourt. fr.
  20. Maalouf, Amin. [1998] 1998. "Deadly Identities," translated by B. Caland. Al Jadid 4(25).
  21. Maalouf, Amin. [2004] 2008. Origins: A Memoir, translated by C. Temerson. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. . Preview via Google Books.