The Franco-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, 74, author of “The Rock of Tanios” (Goncourt prize in 1993) and “Lion the African”, among others, he was elected perpetual secretary of the Academy of the French Language, the institution reported.
Maalouf, prize Prince of Asturias of Letters in 2010, thus begins to represent in official ceremonies the traditional body that ensures the French language.
In his new role, he is also in charge of set the agenda of the weekly sessions.
The Franco-Lebanese writer was already one of the current 35 “immortals” of the organization since he was admitted in 2011 and surpassed the writer Jean-Christophe Rufin in the vote.
Maalouf replaces the historian specialist in Rusia Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, who died last August at the age of 94 and the first woman to direct the French Academy in its almost 400-year history.