Mohammed Achaari ( ar, محمد الأشعري; born 1951) is a Moroccan writer and politician.
Early life
He was born in
Moulay Driss Zerhoun. He studied law at the
Mohammed V University and graduated in 1976. He published a collection of short stories, six collections of poetry and one novel. Some of his works have been translated into French, Spanish, Russian and Dutch. He wrote
articles for several Moroccan newspapers like
Al-Alam and
Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki.
Political life
During the early 1980s, he was jailed for his political activities. He has been elected president of the Moroccan Union of Writers twice in the period 1989-96. In 1997, Achaari was elected delegate for
Rabat
Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populati ...
and in 1998 he became Minister of Culture and in 2002 delegate for
Meknes
Meknes ( ar, مكناس, maknās, ; ber, ⴰⵎⴽⵏⴰⵙ, amknas; french: Meknès) is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco, located in northern central Morocco and the sixth largest city by population in the kingdom. Founded in the 11th c ...
.
2011 Arabic Booker Prize
Achaari was announced joint winner of the 2011
Arabic Booker Prize for his novel ''
The Arch and the Butterfly''. He shared the prize with the Saudi writer
Rajaa Alem.
Bibliography
*''El Jardin De La Soledad/The Garden of Solitude'' (Poem collection in bilingual English and Spanish translation), translated by Khalid Raissouni and Trino Cruz, ed. by Quorum, 2005
External links
*
Banipal, magazine of modern Arab literature (with photo of Mohamed Achaari
(retrieved 04-16-2008)
*
Jadaliyya, Review of
The Arch and the Butterflybr>
{{DEFAULTSORT:Achaari, Mohammed
1951 births
Living people
Ministers of Communications of Morocco
Government ministers of Morocco
Moroccan male journalists
20th-century Moroccan poets
Moroccan novelists
Moroccan male writers
Male novelists
People from Moulay Driss Zerhoun
Mohammed V University alumni
21st-century Moroccan poets
International Prize for Arabic Fiction winners