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
loyalty difficult-choices different
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
born edges dies
... we die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing.
past visitors planets
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.
country son one-day
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
age minorities way
Isn't it a characteristic of the age we live in that it has made everyone in a way a migrant and a member of a minority?
others-opinions opposites people
People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.
beautiful stars heart
How do I pray? I study a rose, I count the stars, I marvel at the beauty of creation and how perfectly ordered it is, at man, the most beautiful work of the Creator, his brain thirsting for knowledge, his heart for love, and his senses, all his senses alert or gratified.
pain war night
let us thank God for having made us this gift of death, so that life is to have meaning; of night, that day is to have meaning; silence, that speech is to have meaning; illness, that health is to have meaning; war, that peace is to have meaning. Let us give thanks to Him for having given us weariness and pain, so that rest and joy are to have meaning. Let us give thanks to him, whose wisdom is infinite.
sorrow battle tears
Let your tears roll tonight, but tomorrow you will start the battle again. What defeats us, always, is just our own sorrow.
country cutting two
What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself
people lazy together
Taking the line of least resistance, we lump the most different people together under the same heading. Taking the line of least resistance, we ascribe to them collective crimes, collective acts and opinions. "The Serbs have massacred…", "The English have devastated…", "The Jews have confiscated…", "The Blacks have torched", "The Arabs refuse…". We blithely express sweeping judgments on whole peoples, calling them "hardworking" and "ingenious", or "lazy", "touchy", "sly", "proud", or "obstinate". And sometimes this ends in bloodshed." – Amin Maalouf "On Identity
country sea belief
Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.
writing taught seems
A life spent writing has taught me to be wary of words. Those that seem clearest are often the most treacherous.
unique identity elements
The identity cannot be compartmentalized; it cannot be split in halves or thirds, nor have any clearly defined set of boundaries. I do not have several identities, I only have one, made of all the elements that have shaped its unique proportions.