Novelist Ahmed Al-Qarmalawi stated that the greatest difficulties he faced during his writing journey were mostly personal challenges rather than those arising from his surrounding reality as a writer.

He added in his interview with “Youm7”, published later, that his first difficulty was hesitation to publish due to lack of confidence in his literary output and not having the courage to reach out to experienced writers or trusted critics to seek their opinions on his work. The solution came unexpectedly through the late great Alaa Al-Deeb, who happened to read his first published short story collection and wrote a long article about it in Al-Ahram newspaper, which boosted his confidence and convinced him to continue writing and publishing.

Al-Qarmalawi continued that his second difficulty was his professional and financial stability in engineering, which made it harder for him to switch to writing, a field that offers no financial security. Without the awards he received, the choice would have been even harder. The third difficulty was his social shyness and discomfort with the communication required in the literary field, which he overcame over time and with experience.

Ahmed Al-Qarmalawi is an Egyptian writer and engineer, born in Cairo in 1978. He graduated from the Civil Engineering Department at the American University in Cairo in June 2001 and earned an MBA from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

He writes novels, short stories, and poetry. His short story collection “Awal Abbas” was published in January 2013 by Dar Al-Riwaq, followed by the novel “The Last Blog” published by the Egyptian Lebanese House, then the novel “Destino” in July 2015. His novel “Summer Rains” published in 2016 won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Young Author in 2018. His novel “Last Call for Passengers” won Best Novel at the Cairo International Book Fair in 2019, and his novel “Heirs of Al-Sheikh” won the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in 2021. His hobbies include oil painting, charcoal and pastel drawing, and playing the oud.