Libyan novelist Ahmed Fagih (1942-2019) is best-known for his twelve-volume historical epic Maps of the Soul.
Ahmed Fagih (Ahmed Elfaqeeh) was born in 1942 in the village of Mizda, 100 miles south of Tripoli. He worked as a journalist in Tripoli until 1962, when he won a scholarship to study theatre at London’s New Era Academy of Drama and Music. He began writing short stories at an early age publishing them in Libyan newspapers and magazines. He gained recognition in 1965 when his first collection of short stories There Is No Water in the Sea (Arabic: البحر لا ماء فيه) won him the highest award sponsored by the Royal Commission of Fine Arts in Libya. In 1972 he returned to Libya to head the National Institute of Music and Drama, in the same year becoming editor of the influential Al-Usbu’ Ath-Thaqafi (Cultural Weekly).
Fagih became the head of the Department of Arts and Literature at the Libyan Ministry of Information and Culture and in 1978 was one of the founders of the Union of Libyan Writers and was elected as its first Secretary General,later travelling back to London to take a diplomatic position as the press counsellor at the Libyan Embassy in Britain.
In 1983 he was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy PhD from the Faculty of Arts of The University of Edinburgh submitting a thesis on 'The Libyan short story'. Fagih’s major work, a trilogy with the English titles I Shall Present You With Another City, These Are the Borders of My Kingdom and A Tunnel Lit by a Woman, won the prize for best novel at the 1991 Beirut Book Fair.
In 2000 he edited an English anthology of 13 short stories by Libyan writers.
Collections of Fagih’s short stories include: Fasten Your Seat Belts (1968), The Stars Disappeared (1976), A Woman of Light (1985) and Mirrors of Venice (1997). Several of his novels have been translated into English, including Maps of the Soul (Darf, 2014) and Homeless Rats (Quartet, 2011)
Fagih held several diplomatic posts representing Libya, in London, Athens, Bucharest and Cairo. He lived and worked between Cairo and Tripoli.
Among his publications:
Short stories
There Is No Water in the Sea (1965) البحر لا ماء فيه
Fasten Your Seatbelts اربطوا أحزمة المقاعد
The Stars Vanished So Where Are You? أختفت النجوم فأين أنت؟
A Woman of Light إمرأة من ضوء
Five Beetles Trying the Tree خمس خنافس تحاكم الشجرة
Mirrors of Venice مرايا فينسيا
30 Short Stories ثلاثون قصة قصيرة
Novels
Homeless Rats فئران بلا جحور
Valley of Ashes حقول الرماد
Shall Present You With Another City سأهبك مدينة أخرى
These Are The Borders of My Kingdom هذه تخوم مملكتي
A Tunnel Lit by A Woman نفق تضيئه أمرأة واحدة
The Trilogy (Garden of The Night) الثلاثية الروائية
Maps of The Soul, an epic work of fiction in 12 volumes خرائط الروح
Plays
Gazelles الغزالات
