Amin Maalouf
Amin Maalouf
Amin Maaloufis a Lebanese-born French author. Has lived in France since 1976. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into many languages. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel Le rocher de Tanios. He was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 2010. He was elected a member of the Académie française on 23 June 2011 to fill seat 29, left vacant by the death of...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth25 February 1949
CountryFrance
I have the profoundest respect for people who behave in a generous way because of religion. But I come from a country where the misuse of religion has had catastrophic consequences. One must judge people not by what faith they proclaim but by what they do.
It's the relationship I have with the world: always trying to escape from reality. I'm a daydreamer; I don't feel in harmony with my epoch or the societies I live in.
I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road... all tongues and all prayers belong to me. But I belong to none of them.
During my youth, the idea of moving from Lebanon was unthinkable. Then I began to realise I might have to go, like my grandfather, uncles and others who left for America, Egypt, Australia, Cuba.
The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.
In my prayers, I want to say: Lord, don’t be far from me, and also don’t come too close. Let me contemplate the stars on the texture of your cloth, but don’t unveil your face to me. Allow me to hear the rivers that you send running, but Lord! Lord! Don’t allow me hearing your voice
All pleasures must be paid for, do not despise those that state their price.
life is not so long that one can grow tired of it
You can't say history teaches us this or that; it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.
Nothing is born of nothing, least of all knowledge, modernity, or enlightened thought; progress is made in tiny surges, in successive laps, like an endless relay race. But there are links without which nothing would be passed on, and for that reason, they deserve the gratitude of all who benefited from them.
Every individual is a meeting ground for many different allegiances, and sometimes these loyalties conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices
... we die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing.
We are not just visitors on this planet, it belongs to us just as we belong to her, its past is ours, so is its future.
I am the son of the road , my country is a caravan and my life is the most unexpected of voyages. i belong to earth and to the god and it is to them that I will one day soon return