Ahmed Mourad
Ahmed Mourad (Arabic: أحمد مراد; born February 14, 1978) is a famous Egyptian writer, novelist, and professional photographer. Before starting his writing career, Mourad worked as a personal and private photographer to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Ahmed Mourad was a student of The Lyceé School, one of Egypt's former French schools that has turned into a government school for the education of the poor and is currently left in decay.
In a signature party, Mourad admitted that he failed both grade four and his senior year and had to restart the following years because of his grades. When asked why he failed, he said that he loved photography so much, he concentrated on it more than he concentrated on his education, and was distracted because of his passion for photography and filmmaking.
He studied at The High Institute for Cinema. He achieved a bachelor's degree and was listed as the first amongst other students. His graduation films achieved many awards in European festivals. His films are Alhaúmon, And On The Seventh Day, and The Three Papers.
He started his writing career in 2007 by publishing his first novel, Vertigo. Vertigo received critical and commercial success throughout all of Egypt and was translated into English, French, and Italian. It was also made into a television series starring actress Hend Sabri in 2012.
The success of Vertigo led Mourad to publish his second work, Diamond Dust, in 2010, which was translated into the Italian language and received generally positive reviews. He later published The Blue Elephant in 2012, his most successful novel and is the currently the best selling novel in Egypt. The novel has received unanimous positive reviews and is being turned into a theatrical film directed by Marwan Hamed, the director of The Yacoubian Building. It stars Karim Abdel Aziz as Yehia, the main protagonist and the narrator of the novel. The film was released on the 27th of July after the end of Ramadan in 2014 before midnight by two hours and received highly positive reviews, and is Egypt's most successful movie in reviews, with lots of people saying the movie makes the Egyptian Cinema move at a higher rank.
His latest released novel is 1919, based on the Egyptian revolution of the same year. Although it was a commercial successes, the novel received mixed reviews unlike its predecessors.