By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

ORIGINS

Idris Ali was born in Aswan in Upper Egypt in 1940 (he was of Nubian ancestry). He received his higher education from Al-Azhar University, in Cairo, Egypt.

WORD WARRIOR: ACTIVISM THROUGH WRITING

In 1969, when he was almost 30, he published his first short-story. He would go on to publish three collections of short-stories and half a dozen novels. In his writings he protested against the harsh treatment and economic deprivation, disenfranchisement and poverty inflicted on the Black Nubian people in the White Arab controlled Egypt. Ali used his pen to give voice to the Nubian people who lost much of their ancestral land, which was caused by the creation of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. His last book “The Leader Having A Haircut” was banned at the 2010 Cairo International Book Fair, due to the critical way the regime of former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi was depicted.

LATER LIFE AND AWARDS

Ali’s novel the “The Explosion of The Skull”, won the Best Egyptian Novel award in 1999. The success of that novel would lead to Ali meeting then-president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. The literary success he achieved later in life would help improve his financial situation somewhat, since like most Nubians, he spent most of his life in poverty, which he wrote about in his autobiography, “Below The Poverty Line”. Ali would attempt suicide on several occassions after the death of his son. Ali would die on November 30, 2010.

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