Muhammad Aladdin, also known as Alaa Eddin is an Egyptiannovelist, short story writer, and script writer. His first collection of short stories was published in 2003, and he is the author of five novels—The Gospel According to Adam, The Twenty-Second Day, The Idol, The Foot, and A Well-Trained Stray—and four short story collections—The Other Shore, The Secret Life of Citizen M, Young Lover, New Lover, and The Season of Migration to Arkidea. A 2017's Sawiris Cultural Award winner; Aladdin has emerged as one of the great idiosyncratic talents of the 2000s, as one of the most noted writers in both Egypt and the Arab countries, and often described as "an innovator in the Arabic literature. Aladdin has gained acclamation for his first novel published ‘’The Gospel According to Adam’’ in January 2006. The work has been hailed by writers like Bahaa Taher and Sonallah Ibrahim to be among the best of a promising new crop. That novel breaks the conventional format of the novel, consisting as it does of a single 60-page-long paragraph that is written in a stream of consciousness style. A reviewer for Al-Ahram’s literary page on May 10, 2006 stated that ‘’The Gospel According to Adam’' reflects “a social reality that has lost all certainties". In his book, "The Arab Novel and the Quest for Renovation" published by Dubi Althaqafia Magazine in May 2011, the famous Moroccan writer and critic Mohammed Berrada sites it as one of 5 novels has renovated the Arab novel. The Egyptian writer Ibrahim Farghali wrote about it in the famous Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar that The Gospel According to Adam is "An experimental and substantial leap in narration style in the modern Egyptian novels", while his latest A Well-Trained Stray, published in 2014, often described in both Egyptian and Italian critique as "A mirror for a whole generation", sometimes compared to The Great Gatsby. The novel was the only Arabic-written Arab book being presented in Turin International Book Fair in May 2016 Aladdin was joined by illuminate names in the Arabic literature like Adunis, Yasmina Khadra, and Tahar Ben Jelloun. He was chosen as one of the most important Egyptian writers in the new millennium by the Egyptian magazine Akhbar Al-Adab in 2011, and one of the as the writer Pauls Toutonghi said in The millions.com. In May 2013, Aladdin give , in the First Convention for Egyptian Writers against the Muslim Brotherhood regime ruling Egypt back then, asserting on dissembling Egypt’s ministry of culture in order to establish a new republic. However, Aladdin spoke openly against the new regime in Egypt after 2013 Egyptian coup d'état and refused to participate in the Second conviction saying to ArabLit blog, on October 23, 2013 that . As a consequence, he was banned from article writing in Egypt. Aladdin wrote for the MTV’s Rebel Music on Ramy Essam as in November 2013.
Writings
Aladdin's literary career began in 2000, when he co-wrote the comic, youth-oriented series , published by Al Mobdeoun publishing house. The series have stopped in 2002 after 10 issues, some of which reached 20,000 copies in Egypt and the Arab world. In 2001 he started writing on cinema and light-content essays for 5 issues of another series called Ice Cream from the same publishing house and in 2002 he wrote another series called Comicia for Dar Al Hussam; this lasted for 4 issues.
In 2002, he was one of two writers to participate in an internationally funded workshop on comic-book creation. The result was the tri-lingual Arabic, English, and French. comic album The Adventures of Prince Seif Ibn Zi Yazan.
In 2003, he published his first conventionally literary book, Al Daffa Al Ukhra, a volume of short stories published by The General Organization for Cultural Palaces, an organ of Egypt's ministry of culture. the book was well received by readers and other writers alike.
In 2004, Aladdin won The General Organization for Cultural Palaces' prize in its pan-Egyptian central contest, for his unpublished first novel Al Dawa’ir. In the same year excerpts from his second novel The Twenty-Second Day appeared in the prestigious literary magazine , then to be published in the Egyptian in 2007.
In 2008, he had 2 new books published, The Idol , a novel from El-'Ain publishing, and The Secret Life of Citizen M, a short-stories collection, from Mezan publishing house. He also had the second printing of The Gospel According to Adam released by Mezan.
In 2005, he began writing comics for the Saudi children's magazine Basem.
In October 2009, his story New Lover, Young Lover was published in the American in its Cairo portfolio, it was translated by Humphrey T. Davies, and was first published in Arabic in November 2009 by the Egyptian Supreme Council for Culture in a special anthology titled "The Best Egyptian Short Stories.
In 2009, he published his fourth novel The Foot from El-'Ain Publishing house.
In 2012, he published his short-stories collection Young Lover, New Lover from Merit Publishing house, soon it was chosen as one of the most important books of the year by Al Saqia Al Thaqafia The Cultural Wheel, a notable arts and literature centre in Egypt, it was the only short story collection chosen.
In January 2014, Aladdin has his fifth novel published, A Well-Trained Stray by Al ‘Ain Publishing. It was released in Italian in September 2015 by the Italian publishing house Il Seriente, under the name Cani Sicolti.
In January 2014, Aladdin has his fourth short stories collection, as three long story volume The Season of Migration to Arkidea by Merit publishing, The title story was translated into Dutch and Italian before actually published in book in Arabic.
Other works
He participated in The Arab Short stories Conference, and The Arab Novel Conference, both held 2008 and 2009 respectively, and organized by The Supreme Council for Culture-Egypt.
In 2010 he gave a lecture about his works in the Edinburgh University's Middle Eastern Society.
He participated in the Dutch famous festival Writers' Unlimited in 2015.
