Amin Maalouf
- Date of investiture:
- 6 April 2006
- Sponsor:
- Enric Olivé
- Area of knowledge:
- Humanities
Amin Maalouf was born in Beirut in 1949. He was educated at the French Jesuit schools of Beirut, where he studied sociology and political economics. He started work as a journalist for the Al Nahar newspaper, writing articles about international politics.
In 1976, during the Lebanese civil war, he went into exile in France. He continued his journalistic career as chief editor of Jeune Afrique, covering numerous important events such as the Vietnam War or the Iranian Revolution, and reported in more than 60 countries, including India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Yemen and Algeria.
Since 1985, Amin has dedicated himself exclusively to writing. Several of his works are set in the Middle East, Africa and the Mediterranean and always share the same common denominators: the struggle for coexistence and tolerance towards different cultures. He received the Mediterranean Prize in 2004 for Origins, the Goncourt Prize in 1993 for The Rock of Tanios, and the Maison de la Presse Prize in 1988 for Samarkand.
