Atiq Rahimi

Atiq Rahimi, born in Kabul in 1962, is a French-Afghan writer and filmmaker. 1984 Rahimi’s family went into exile, and after studying at the Franco-Afghan lycée, he joined his father in Bombay. In 1979, he returned to Afghanistan to read literature at the University of Kabul, and worked as a cinema critic. In 1984, he relocated to Pakistan for a brief period, before seeking political asylum in France. He completed his PhD in audio-visual communications at the Sorbonne, and began writing Earth and Ashes in 1996. After 18 years in exile, Atiq Rahimi returned to Afghanistan in February 2002 and helped establish an Afghan writers’ centre in Kabul, with the assistance of the French government.
Rahimi is the recipient of a number of prestigious literary and film awards. In 2004, he won the Prix du Regard vers l’Avenir at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Dhow award for Best Feature Film at the Zanzibar International Film Festival for his film version of Earth and Ashes. In 2008, he was awarded the Prix Goncourt for The Patience Stone – France’s highest literary honour. Rahimi directed 2012 the film adaptation of The Patience Stone from a screenplay he co-authored with Jean-Claude Carrière.

Participant of the European Literature Days 2015.