Fouad Laroui

Fouad Laroui was born in 1958 in Oujda, Morocco. He holds degrees in mathematics, physics and civil engineering (École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris 1982) and a PhD in Economics (Paris 1994).

He is a writer (novels, short stories, poetry and essays) who lives between Casablanca, Amsterdam, and Paris. He won the ‘Albert Camus Prize’ in 1996 for his debut novel, Les dents du Topographe, and many prizes since, including the ‘Eddy du Perron Prize’ 2001 for “bringing more understanding between different communities in The Netherlands.” After the success of his humorous essay Vreemdeling: aangenaam (“Stranger: Pleased To Meet You,” 2001), he has published two collections of poems in Dutch, Verbannen Woorden (Forbidden Words, 2002) and Hollandse woorden (Dutch Words, 2004). His essay, De l’islamisme – Une refutation du totalitarisme religieux (On Islamism – a Personal Refutation of Religious Totalitarianism, 2006), was published simultaneously in French and in Dutch in 2006 and has been re-published in 2015 (Robert Laffont, Paris).

He currently teaches ‘Epistemology’ and ‘French literature’ at the University of Amsterdam, after having taught ‘Arabic culture’ at the same university for some years. Previously he had taught ‘Economics and Econometrics’ in France and England and ‘Environmental Science’ at the Free University in the Netherlands (1999-2006). His novel Une année chez les Francais, was short-listed for the Prix Goncourt 2010. He received in 2012 the Samuel-Pallache-Prijs for promoting mutual understanding between different communities in Amsterdam. In 2013 he received the ‘Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle’ for L’étrange affaire du pantalon de Dassoukine and the Premio Francesco Alziator – Sezione Speciale 2013 (Italy) (France).

In 2014, he was awarded the ‘Grande médaille de la Francophonie’ by the Académie française (Paris) and the ‘Grand Prix Jean-Giono’ (unanimous decision of the jury) for his novel Les Tribulations du dernier Sijilmassi (which was also shortlisted for the ‘Prix Goncourt’). In 2015, the same novel received the ‘Prix de la littérature de l’exil’ in Lille (France).