Background
Ahmed Fagih was born on December 28, 1942 in Mizda, Libya. Son of Ibrahim and Mabruka (maiden name: Abulqasim, present surname: ul-Tir) al-Fagih.
Diplomat editor journalist writer
Ahmed Fagih was born on December 28, 1942 in Mizda, Libya. Son of Ibrahim and Mabruka (maiden name: Abulqasim, present surname: ul-Tir) al-Fagih.
Ahmed entered school in Mizda, a small oasis town south of Tripoli, and studied there until his teens before he migrated to Tripoli in 1957 to pursue more higher studies and begin his writing career. Fagih travelled in 1962 to Egypt to study journalism with the help of a UNESCO sponsorship program. In the late 1960s he travelled to London to study drama and theatre until 1972. In 1983 he was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy from the Faculty of Arts of The University of Edinburgh submitting a thesis on "The Libyan short story".
In 1965 Ahmed published his first collection of short stories titled "There Is No Water in the Sea". After returning from Britain he was appointed the director of the National Institute of Music and Drama. In 1972 Fagih became the editor of the influential cultural and literary newspaper "The Cultural Weekly". During this period he founded "The New Theatre" play and drama group through which he directed performed several plays. Fagih became the head of the Department of Arts and Literature at the Libyan Ministry of Information and Culture and in 1978 was one of the founders of the Union of Libyan Writers and was elected as its first Secretary General, later travelling back to London to take a diplomatic position as the press counselor at the Libyan Embassy in Britain, during which he established the Arab Cultural Trust, which launched a cultural quarterly magazine named "Azure" becoming its editor-in-chief. In 1991 he published his three part novel "Garden of The Night". In 2000 He edited an English anthology of 13 short stories by Libyan writers.
Quotations: “I write to satisfy a natural inclination to let go of the steam gathering beneath my ribs, also to communicate with my fellow human beings. The struggle between old values and new ones, as reflected in human behavior, is what inspires me most.”
Ahmed married Baya al-Ashter in 1966, has 5 children: Ibrahim, Hisham, Lamia, Aladdin, Najla.