The French Academy elected in the first round – by 24 votes to 8 – Amin Maalouf to the post of permanent secretary this Thursday, September 28. The election pitted Amin Maalouf against Jean-Christophe Rufin, two writers and long-time friends. He succeeds Ms. Carrère d’Encausse, who died on August 5 at the age of 94, who held the position for almost a quarter of a century. The new elected official is the 33rd permanent secretary since 1634 and the founding of the French Academy. In this role he joins immortals such as d’Alembert, Georges Duhamel, Maurice Genevoix and Maurice Druon…
Born in Lebanon on February 25, 1949, into a family of teachers, Amin Maalouf was the winner of the Goncourt Prize in 1993, for Le Rocher de Tanios. Elected to the French Academy on June 23, 2011, in the chair of Claude Lévi-Strauss (29th), he was received on June 14, 2012… by Jean-Christophe Rufin. First a journalist as a reporter then an editorialist, he has devoted himself to literature as a novelist and essayist since 1984. His books have been translated around the world in around fifty languages.