Amin Maalouf was born in Lebanon in 1949. A journalist and director of the daily newspaper An-Nahar, he lived in Beirut until the start of the civil war in 1975, when he left for Paris with his family. His life straddles East and West - he reads and writes in Arabic, but chooses to publish in French. He refuses to be limited to one identity, either Arab or French, but chooses actively to be both simultaneously. A novelist, essayist and memoirist, he has won prestigious prizes, including the Prix Goncourt for his novels and other books which have been translated into more than forty languages. He lives in Paris. George Miller is the translator of No and Me. He is also a regular translator for Le Monde diplomatique's English-language edition, and the translator of Conversations with my Gardener by Henri Cueco and Inside Al-Qaeda by Mohammed Sifaoui.
Should be prescribed reading in the Foreign Office and on the foreign desk of newspapers and the BBC -- Allan Massie Spectator, Books of the Year Stimulating and provocative Max Hastings, Sunday Times [Maalouf] is perfectly placed and wonderfully qualified to shed light on the pervasive sense that there is a cataclysmic battle in progress between civilisations and systems of belief. Disordered World is full of insight -- Justin Cartwright Observer Fascinating ... no review can do justice to its limpid prose Financial Times