Ahmed Mourad
Feb 14, 1978 - Egypt
An Egyptian writer, novelist, professional photographer , and screenwriter. He studied at The High Institute for Cinema. He achieved a bachelor's degree and was listed as the first among 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.
Ahmed Mourad with "VERTIGO" has won the Award for The Mediterranean Culture Award of 2013 in fiction section.. The award ceremony was held Friday, October 4, 2013 at 17:30 at the Teatro "Rendano" of Cosenza.. Italy
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 the best-selling novel in Egypt which was listed for the Arabic Booker Prize 2012. 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 27 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.
The next 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.
His latest novel The land of god was released in March 2016
He is the screenwriter of The Originals (Arabic: الأصليين), also directed by Marwan Hamed. Mourad was initially going to write it as a novel before he decided to make it as a theatrical film. The film was released on June 25, 2017 across Egypt to a mixed critical reception from audiences and critics alike. It was also screened at Fantastic Fest in the same year
