Amin Maalouf is a French-Lebanese writer, born in Beirut in 1949. A journalist until the Lebanese civil war brought him to France in 1976, he came to prominence with "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" (1983) and with novels that move across the Mediterranean world, among them "Leo Africanus", "Samarkand" and "The Rock of Tanios", which won the Prix Goncourt in 1993. His essays, including "In the Name of Identity" and "Adrift: How Our World Lost Its Way", examine belonging and identity-driven violence. Elected to the Académie française in 2011, he has been its Perpetual Secretary since 2023.
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Amin Maalouf is a French-Lebanese writer, born in Beirut in 1949. A journalist until the Lebanese civil war brought him to France in 1976, he came to prominence with "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" (1983) and with novels that move across the Mediterranean world, among them "Leo Africanus", "Samarkand" and "The Rock of Tanios", which won the Prix Goncourt in 1993. His essays, including "In the Name of Identity" and "Adrift: How Our World Lost Its Way", examine belonging and identity-driven violence. Elected to the Académie française in 2011, he has been its Perpetual Secretary since 2023.
