President of the Writers’ Union of Egypt and secretary general of the General Union of Arab Writers, Mohamed Salmawy, awarded early this week the People’s Award from his former organisation to prominent writer Sonallah Ibrahim.
The famous writer has been awarded for his works. Ibrahim is one the country’s most controversial novelists. He was born in 1937, and was raised by a carieane upper-middle class family.
Ibrahim has written a number of novels and short stories, as well as a dozen children’s books. He has also translated a variety of books into Arabic. His book Cairo from Edge to Edge is a rich and highly original portrait of a city as seen through the lens of French photographer Jean Pierre Ribire and Sonallah’s pen.
Ibrahim was himself imprisoned in the 1960s for his political opinions.
After spending several years abroad, he returned to Cairo in 1974, where he has lived ever since, publishing many works of fiction. In 2004, he was awarded the Egyptian government’s prestigious Novelist of the Year prize. Ibrahim publicly declined the award, saying he could not accept a literary prize from “a government that, in my opinion, lacks the credibility to bestow it.”
