Alaa
Al Aswany

Recognized as one of the greatest novelists and master storytellers, Alaa Al Aswany is the recipient of 20 international literary honors and awards. His novels are acclaimed in the field of contemporary literature, selling millions of copies in three dozen languages and adapted into film and theater performances. The Times of London selected Al Alswany among the 50 most important novelists in the last half century. He was named at the 2010 Paris Book Fair one of 30 most remarkable non-French writers.

​Al Aswany reached international literary acclaim with his groundbreaking novel The Yacoubian Building. Through the prism of a fashionable downtown Cairo building, he exposes the corrupt deal making and exploitative relationships of power in Mubarak’s Egypt. His most recent published novel The Automobile Club of Egypt tells the story of family, servitude, and the struggle for dignity during a time when decaying monarchy and growing resistance to occupation alters a nation’s destiny.