Idris Ali (1940 – November 30, 2010) was an Egyptian author of Nubian origin.

Early life

He was born in

Aswan Aswan (, also ; ar, أسوان, ʾAswān ; cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛ ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient E ...

and studied at Al-Azhar University. He published his first story in 1969, and eventually wrote six novels and three short story collections. Among his best-known works are ''Dongola'' and ''Poor'', both of which have been published in English by the

AUC Press The American University in Cairo Press (AUCP, AUC Press) is the leading English-language publisher in the Middle East. The largest translator of Arabic literature in the world, AUC Press has a reputation for carefully selecting and translating t ...

, in translations by Peter Theroux and Elliot Colla respectively. Theroux’s translation of ''Dongola'' received the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award in 1997.

Career

Idris Ali's work dealt largely with life in his native

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

. He was a strong voice against the poverty and deprivation suffered by the Nubian people, and he protested against the loss of native land caused by the building of the

Aswan High Dam The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan L ...

in the 1960s and 70s. He lived in

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

between 1976 and 1980, and his last book ''The Leader Having a Haircut'' (2010) caused considerable controversy when it was banned at the 2010 Cairo International Book Fair due to its critical depiction of the

Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

regime. Also notable is his novel ''The Explosion of the Skull'' which won the Best Egyptian Novel award in 1999 and led to his meeting President Hosni Mubarak. This also improved his financial circumstances somewhat. Ali spent large parts of his life in poverty, as recounted in his autobiography ''Below the Poverty Line''. He worked for a construction company for low wages when the income from his writings proved to be insufficient. He also suffered the loss of his son which led to multiple suicide attempts in his later years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ali, Idris 1940 births People from Aswan 2010 deaths Egyptian novelists Egyptian male short story writers Egyptian short story writers Nubian people Egyptian people of Nubian descent Al-Azhar University alumni 20th-century novelists 20th-century short story writers 20th-century male writers