Ibrahim al-Koni

Ibrāhīm al-Kōnī (sometimes translated as Ibrāhīm Kūnī) (ابراهيم الكوني) is a Libyan writer and is considered to be one of the most prolific Arab novelists.

Biography
Born in 1948 in the Fezzan Region, Ghadamis City, Ibrahim al-Koni was brought up in the traditions of the Tuareg, people, who are popularly known as "the veiled men" or "the blue men." Mythological elements, spiritual quests and existential questions mingle in the writings of al-Koni, who has been "hailed as a magical realist, a Sufi fabulist, and a poetic novelist."

He spent his childhood in the desert and learned to read and write Arabic when he was twelve. Al-Koni studied literature and journalism at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow and worked as a journalist in Moscow and Warsaw. He moved to Switzerland in 1993 and was living there as of 2011.

Works
By 2007, Kuni had published more than 80 books and received numerous awards. His books have been translated from their original Arabic into 35 languages. His novel Gold Dust appeared in English in 2008. He won the Mohamed Zefzaf Prize for the Arabic Novel in 2005, and in 2008 he won the Sheikh Zayed Award for Literature. In 2015, Kuni was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.