On Identity

The notion of identity - personal, religious, ethnic or national - is one that has given rise to heated passions and crimes throughout the history of mankind. What it is that makes each one of us unique and dissimilar to any other individual has been one of the fundamental questions of philosophy from Socrates to Freud. In this important series of reflections, the author, a Lebanese who now lives in France, where he is a well-known writer and commentator, considers how we define ourselves and how identity is understood in the world's different cultures. Author Biography: Amin Maalouf was formerly director of the leading Beirut daily, an-Nahar, and the editor of Jeune Afrique. His fiction, in English translation, includes Leo the African, The Rock of Tanios, Samarkland and The Gardens of Light. He has also written an acclaimed scholarly work, The Crusades through Arab Eyes. Barbara Bray has twice won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize, as well as the French-American Foundation Prize, for her translations. These include The Lover by Marguerite Duras, The Concert by Ismail Kadare, and Georges Sand's letters in Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence. Amin Maalouf's "Rock of Tanios" won the 1993 Prix Goncourt.