Alaa Al Aswany

Alaa al-Aswany (Arabic: علاء الأسواني), Egyptian Arabic (Masri) "علاء الاسوانى" (born 1957) is an Egyptian writer, and a founding member of the political movement Kefaya.

Life and works

Trained as a dentist in Egypt and Chicago, it took him 9 years to earn his masters degree in dentistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago where he spent 17 years in his life. al-Aswany has contributed numerous articles to Egyptian newspapers on literature, politics, and social issues. His second novel, The Yacoubian Building, an ironic depiction of modern Egyptian society, has been widely read in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. It has been translated into English, Danish, Finnish, French, Norwegian, Greek and Dutch, and was adapted into a film (2006) and a television series (2007) of the same name.

Chicago, a novel set in the city in which the author was educated, was published in January 2007.

Al-Aswany participated in the Blue Metropolis in Montreal, June 2008, and was featured in interviews with the CBC programme "Writers and Company".

Bibliography (in Arabic)

• 2002: Imārat Ya‘qūbiān, (Arabic: عمارة يعقوبيان)
• 2004: Nīrān sadīqa, (Arabic: نيران صديقة)
• 2007: Chicago, (Arabic: شيكاجو)
• 2010: Limatha la Yathour El Masriyoon, (Arabic: لماذا لا يثور المصريون؟)

English Translations

• Alaa al Aswany, Friendly Fire: Ten Tales of Today’s Cairo, Humprey Davies (translator), The American University in Cairo Press, 2008
• Alaa al Aswany, Chicago, Farouk Abdel Wahab (translator), The American University in Cairo Press, 2008
• Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, HarperPerennial, 2007
• Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, Fourth Estate, 2007
• Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, Humprey Davies (translator, HarperPerennial, 2006
• Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building, Humprey Davies (translator), The American University in Cairo Press, 2004

References and external links

• 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, April 27, 2008.
• Salama, Vivian, "A Tale of Some Egyptian: As Yacoubian Building Heads West, the Author Discusses the Story's Message", Daily Star Egypt, December 8, 2005.
• Alaa Al Aswany interviewed by Jonathan Heawood, English PEN at the London Book Fair, 2008, podcast [1]
• 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 [2]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97897234

• Review of "Chicago" in The Ambassadors Online Magazine, July 2009 [3]