Souhaib Ayoub is a writer, journalist and actor. His debut novel Satin Man (رجل من ساتان) appeared with Hachette Nawfal in 2019, and his play, L’imperceptible suintement de la vie, which he himself performed, was directed by Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué, as part of Hartaqat, at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne in January 2023 and toured Europe throughout 2023. He lives in Paris, where he often leads creative writing workshops. He also draws and paints.
Ayoub’s creative work explores questions relating to queerness, gender identity, and the body, delving into hidden corners of the individual and collective memory; his human rights activism and journalism also regularly focus on gender and sexuality. The rich histories of his hometown, Tripoli, are an equally central theme in his work. Satin Man, set amidst the domestic intrigues and gang rivalries of a working-class Tripolitanian neighbourhood, is akin to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet in its evocation of the dense texture of urban life. His forthcoming novel, The Family Wolf (Hachette Antoine) which received a work-in-progress grant from Culture Resource (Al Mawrid Al Thaqafy), is a detective novel that follows the serial killings of women in an apartment building in the city. In 2013 he founded Taʿa Naktub (“let’s write”), a project designed to encourage young people in Tripoli to take up creative writing.
His Instagram account: www.instagram.com/emsimi
