The English Pen Online World Atlas

Adbelrahmane Munif

Tuesday, 03 June 2008

Biography:

Abdelrahmane Munif was born in 1933, to a Saudi trading family based in Jordan. He attended university in Baghdad (until he was ejected from Iraq for protesting the signing of the Baghdad Pact in 1955) and Cairo, and took a Ph.D. in oil economics at the University of Belgrade. He worked in the oil industry in Syria, moving to Lebanon to become a print journalist. He subsequently edited an oil magazine in Iraq until 1981, moving to France, and finally retiring to Syria, where he dedicated himself to writing until his death in 2004.

His novels were immensely popular and critically acclaimed for their 'savage and surreal' (Tariq Ali) portraits of the oil-rich, corrupt ruling elites of the Gulf. His works were banned in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere) and he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1963 for his criticisms.