Alaa Al Aswany
Alaa Al Aswany | |
|---|---|
University of Illinois at Chicago | |
| Notable works | The Isam Abd el-Ati Papers (1990) The Yacoubian Building Chicago (2007) Friendly Fire (2004, 2008) The Automobile Club of Egypt (2013) The Republic of False Truths (2021) |
| Notable awards | Bashraheel Award for Arabic Novel (2005) The International Cavafi Award (2005) Bruno-Kriesky Award (2008) Tiziano Terzani Literary Award Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters, France, 2016) Grand Prix of the Novel, Toulon France Festival (2006) Grinzani Cavour Award, Turin, Italy (2007) Mediterranean Culture Award, Naples, Italy (2007) Friedrich Rukert Literary Award (2008) Bruno Kreisky literary Award, Austria (2008) Achievement Award from the University of Illinois (2010) Majidi bin Zahir Arab Literature Award, Montreal, Canada (2011) Tiziano Terzani Award, Odeon, Italy (2011) Johann Philipp Palm Award, Germany (2012) |
| Spouse | Eman Taymoor (1993–present)[1] |
| Children | 3[2][3] |
| Website | |
| alaaalaswany | |
Alaa Al Aswany (
Arabic: علاء الأسواني, IPA: [ʕæˈlæːʔ elɑsˈwɑːni]; born 26 May 1957) is an Egyptian writer, novelist, and a founding member of the political movement Kefaya
.
Early life and career
Al Aswany was born on 26 May 1957 in Cairo. His mother, Zainab, came from an aristocratic family; her uncle was a
Egyptian Revolution of 1952.[4] His father, Abbas Al Aswany, was from Aswan[3] (in Lower Nubia) and was a lawyer and writer who "is remembered as being a captivating and charismatic speaker with a broad following and loyalty within a cross-section of the Egyptian revolutionary intelligentsia". Abbas Al Aswany wrote a regular back-page essay in the Egyptian weekly magazine Rose al-Yūsuf entitled Aswaaniyat.[5] In 1972, he was "the recipient of the state award for literature".[3] He died when Alaa was 19 years old.[4]
Al Aswany attended Le Lycée Français in
University of Illinois at Chicago in 1985.[6] He speaks Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.[7] He studied Spanish literature in Madrid
.
Al Aswany married his first wife in his early twenties. She was a dentist and they had their son, Seif. They later divorced. When he was 37, he married Eman Taymoor and they had two daughters, May and Nada.
He wrote a weekly literary critique entitled "Parenthetically" in the Egyptian newspaper
His second novel, Egyptian Revolution of 2011, many protesters approached him and said "We are here because of what you wrote".[13]
Chicago, a novel set in the city in which the author was educated, was published in January 2007 and his Automobile Club of Egypt was published in English in 2016.
Al Aswany's name has also been included in the list of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World,[14] issued by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Amman, Jordan. He was number one in The Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers list 2011.[15]
Al Aswany participated in the Blue Metropolis literary festival in
Writers and Company
.
In January 2015, the Gingko Library published Democracy is the Answer: Egypt's Years of Revolution, a collection of newspaper columns written by Al Aswany for Al-Masry Al-Youm between 2011 and 2014.[16][17]
In 2018, Al Aswany published a novel called Jumhuriyat ka'an (translated into English as The Republic of False Truths[18]), which takes place in the backdrop of the 2011 Revolution.[19]
Role in the revolution
Al Aswany was in
SCAF.[13]
Bibliography (in Arabic)
Novels
- 1990: Awrāq ʾIṣṣām ʾAbd il-ʾĀṭī (Arabic: أوراق عصام عبد العاطى, The Papers of Essam Abdel Aaty)
- 2002: ʿImārat Yaʾqūbiyān (Arabic: عمارة يعقوبيان, The Yacoubian Building)
- 2007: Arabic: شيكاجو)
- 2013: Nādī il-sayyārāt (Arabic: نادي السيارات, The Automobile Club of Egypt)
- 2018: Jumhuriyat ka'an (Arabic: جمهورية كأن, The Republic of False Truths)
Short stories
- 1990: Alladhī iqtarab wa raʾa (Arabic: الذى اقترب و رأى, "Who Approached and Saw")
- 1998: Jamʾiyat muntaẓirī il-zaʿīm (Arabic: جمعية منتظرى الزعيم, "Waiting for a Leader")
- 2004: Nīrān sadīqa (Arabic: نيران صديقة, "Friendly Fire")
Articles
- 2010: Li mā dhā lā yathūr il-Miṣriyūn (Arabic: لماذا لا يثور المصريون؟, "Why Don't Egyptians Revolt?”)
- 2011: Hal nastaḥiqq il-dimuqrāṭiyya? (Arabic: هل نستحق الديمقراطية؟, "Do We Deserve Democracy?”)
- 2011: Miṣr ʿalā dikkat il-iḥṭiyāṭy (Arabic: مصر على دكة الإحتياطى, "Egypt on the Reserve Bench")
- 2012: Hal akhṭaʾat il-thawra il-Miṣriyya? (Arabic: هل أخطأت الثورة المصرية؟, "Did the Egyptian Revolution Go Wrong?”)
- 2014: Kayf naṣnaʾ il-diktātūr? (Arabic: كيف نصنع الديكتاتور؟, "How do we make the Dictator?”)
- Since November 2013, he has been writing a monthly opinion column for the International Herald Tribune/New York Times.
English translations
- Alaa Al Aswany (15 February 2015). Democracy is the Answer: Egypt's Years of Revolution. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-1-909942-71-4.
- Alaa Al Aswany (12 April 2011). On the State of Egypt: What Made the Revolution Inevitable. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-94699-7.
- Alaa Al Aswany (2009). Friendly Fire. Translated by Humphrey Davies. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-730600-8.
- Alaa Al Aswany (6 October 2009). Chicago. Translated by Farouk Abdel Wahab. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-198188-3.
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, HarperPerennial, 2007
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, Fourth Estate, 2007
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, Humphrey Davies (translator), HarperPerennial, 2006
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, Humphrey Davies (translator), The American University in Cairo Press, 2004
- Alaa Al Aswany, The Republic of False Truths, S. R. Fellowes (translator), 2021. ISBN 9780307957221
Awards
- 2005:
Arabic: جائزة باشراحيل للرواية العربية) - 2005:
Greece The International Cavafi Award - 2006:
France The Great Novel Award from Toulon Festival - 2007:
Italy The Culture Award from The Foundation of The Mediterranean - 2007: Italy Grinzane Cavour Award
- 2008:
Austria Bruno-Kriesky Award - 2008:
Germany Friedrich Award - 2010:
USA University of Illinois Achievement Award - 2011:
Canada Blue Metropolis Award for Arabic Literature - 2012: Italy Tiziano Terzani Literary Award
- 2012: Italy Mediterranean Cultural Award[21]
- 2012: Johann Philipp Palm Award[22]
- 2016: France Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
References
- ^ Planet Book Groupie Interview Archived 12 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Maya Jaggi, "Cairo calling", The Guardian, 23 August 2008.
- ^ a b c d Rachel Cooke, "The Interview", The Observer, 31 May 2009. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
- ^ a b Khan, Riz (13 February 2009). "One on One". Al Jazeera.
- ^ Chicago Novel Book Review Archived 14 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ McCarthy, Rory (27 February 2006). "Dentist by day, top novelist by night". The Guardian. London.
- ^ Bio of Alaa Al Aswani"[usurped], World Affairs Journal, accessed 24 May 2011.
- ^ a b c d "Alaa Al-Aswany's C.V." Retrieved 12 March 2013 – via Facebook.
- ^ "Egipto ante el fascismo | Internacional". El Pais. 28 October 2011. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
- ^ "Alaa Al Aswany". The Guardian. London. 9 July 2009.
- ^ t. "Alaa Al Aswany". Retrieved 12 March 2013 – via Facebook.
- ^ Karen Kostyal, "Alaa Al Aswany: Voice of Reason", National Geographic, September 2006, accessed 17 May 2011.
- ^ a b c Matthew Kaminski, "The Face of Egypt’s Uprising", The Wall Street Journal, 13 April 2011, accessed 24 May 2011.
- ^ The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre. "The 500 Most Influential Muslims" (PDF). The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre. Retrieved 3 January 2011.
- ^ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. 28 November 2011. Archived from the original on 4 May 2012. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – Start the Week, Arabian Nights". BBC. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
- ^ "Democracy is the Answer: Egypt's Years of Revolution". Middle East Monitor – The Latest from the Middle East. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
- ^ "The Republic of False Truths". Penguin Random House.
- ^ Beskova, Katarina (2020). "A Bleak Portrait of the Revolution: Alaa al-Aswany's Jumhuriya ka'an". Asian and African Studies. 29 (2): 166–191. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
- YouTube
- ^ الوفد. "الأسوانى يفوز بجائزة "البحر المتوسط" للثقافة". الوفد. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ ""الأسوانى" يفوز بجائزة حرية التعبير الألمانية – اليوم السابع". اليوم السابع (in Arabic). 28 November 2012. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
Further reading
- Kostyal, Karen, “Alaa Al Aswany: Voice of Reason” (interview with the author), National Geographic Interactive, nd.
- Mishra, Pankaj. “Where Alaa Al Aswany Is Writing From”, New York Times Magazine, 27 April 2008.
- Salama, Vivian, “A Tale of Some Egyptian: As Yacoubian Building Heads West, the Author Discusses the Story's Message”, Daily Star Egypt, 8 December 2005.
- Alaa Al Aswany interviewed by Jonathan Heawood, English PEN at the London Book Fair, 2008, podcast
- Watch a video interview with Alaa al Aswany talking about Chicago on The Interview Online
- Interview with Alaa al Aswany at the World Book Club
- https://www.npr.org/2008/12/07/97897234/egyptian-students-explore-america-in-chicago
- Review of “Chicago”, Ambassadors Online Magazine, July 2009
- Steavenson, Wendell (16 January 2012). "Letter from Cairo: Writing the Revolution". The New Yorker. Vol. 87, no. 44. pp. 38–45. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
- Beskova, Katarina (2020). "A Bleak Portrait of the Revolution: Alaa al-Aswany's Jumhuriya ka'an". Asian and African Studies. 29 (2): 166–191. * [1]
External links
- "علاء الأسواني". Alaa Al-Aswany's Official Blog. Archived from the original on 6 December 2006.
- Alaa Al Aswany Official Facebook page [2]
