Amin Maalouf Elected to ‘Academie Francaise’, Receives Congratulations from PM Miqati

Renowned Lebanese Author Amin Maalouf will join the prestigious French Academy institution (Academie Francaise) on Thursday after being elected in June 2011 as the successor of Claude Levi-Strauss, news reports said Thursday.

“It is a great joy for me, but the ceremony of my joining the academy is more majestic than any other,” Maalouf told the Agence France Presse in an interview.

He added: “I shall be enjoying festivities much better when they are turned into a lustrous memory. Living the moment would be quandary. But I have chosen this hence, I shall try to traverse it without allowing stress to stifle my happiness.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati personally congratulated Maalouf over the phone, expressing Lebanon’s pride that the Lebanese novelist will now join an elite group of writers and philosophers.

Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages.

He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanios (Le Rocher de Tanios).

He has also been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in its 2010 edition.