Alaa Al Aswany

Alaa Al Aswany (b. 1957, Cairo) is an Egyptian novelist. The son of a writer, he trained in Cairo and at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he completed a dental degree. He writes in Arabic; his novels have been translated into more than forty languages.

His second novel, Imarat Yaqubyan (The Yacoubian Building, published in Arabic in 2002), follows the tenants of a once-elegant Cairo apartment block across several decades of Egyptian history, addressing class stratification, political corruption, sexual repression, and the rise of religious extremism through the accumulated stories of individuals from different social positions. The book became one of the most widely read Arabic novels of the early twenty-first century and was adapted into an Egyptian film in 2006. His subsequent novels — Chicago (2007), The Automobile Club of Egypt (2013), and The Republic of False Truths (2011) — each embed individual lives within specific historical and political contexts.

Al Aswany was a prominent participant in the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, speaking publicly in Tahrir Square and writing extensively on the uprising and its aftermath. His political positions have made his work and public presence contested in Egypt. He has received several Arabic literary prizes and has taught at the American University in Cairo.