Amin Maalouf's fiction includes Leo the African, Rock of Tanios, which won the 1993 Prix Goncourt, Samarkand and Ports of Call. He is also the author of an acclaimed scholarly work, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, as well as the much admired essay, 'On Identity'.Alberto Mangguel was born in Buenos Aires and has lived in Canada and in Europe. He has an international reputation as an anthropologist, essayist, novelist and editor and has translated the works of Julio Cortazar and Marguerite Yourcenar. He is the author of A History of reading and Reading Pictures.
