Américo Castro Quesada was a Spanish cultural historian, philologist, and literary critic who challenged some of the prevailing notions of Spanish identity, raising controversy with his conclusions that Spaniards did not become the distinct group that they are today until after the Islamic conquest of Hispania of 711, an event that turned them into an Iberian caste co-existing among Moors and Jews, and that the history of Spain and Portugal was adversely affected with the success in the 11th to the 15th centuries of the "Reconquista" or Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula and with the Spanish expulsion of the Jews (1492).
Amet Seid Abdulla oğlu Özenbaşlı was a Crimean Tatar politician and writer. A leading member of the Crimean Tatar nationalist movement and a minister in the Crimean People's Republic, he was later involved in the Crimean Tatar community in the Soviet Union. After supporting Crimean Tatar collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but was released in 1955. Following his prison service, he lived in Tajikistan until his death.
Ami Ayalon is an Israeli politician and a former member of the Knesset for the Labor Party. He was previously head of the Shin Bet, Israel's secret service, and commander-in-chief of the Navy. He came in second to Ehud Barak in a Labor party leadership election in June 2007, and was appointed a Minister without Portfolio in September 2007. He is one of the recipients of Israel's highest decoration, the Medal of Valor.
Amie Kaufman is an Australian author. She has authored New York Times bestselling and internationally bestselling science fiction and fantasy for young adults. She is known for the Starbound Trilogy and Unearthed, which she co-authored with Meagan Spooner; for her series The Illuminae Files, co-authored with Jay Kristoff; and for her solo series, Elementals. Her books have been published in over 35 countries.
Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born French author who has lived in France since 1976. Although his native language is Arabic, he writes in French, and his works have been translated into over 40 languages.
Professor Amin Saikal, is Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, and Founding Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, at the Australian National University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia. Professor Saikal has specialised in the politics, history, political economy and international relations of the Middle East and Central Asia. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, Indiana University, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Zayed University, and visiting fellow at Cambridge University and the Institute of Development Studies, as well as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in International Relations (1983-1988). He is a member of many national and international academic organisations.
Aminata Sow Fall is a Senegalese-born author. While her native language is Wolof, her books are written in French. She is considered "the first published woman novelist from francophone Black Africa".
Aminatta Forna, OBE, is a Scottish and Sierra Leonean writer. She is the author of a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest, and four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013) and Happiness (2018). Her novel The Memory of Love was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for "Best Book" in 2011, and was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Forna is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and was, until recently, Sterling Brown Distinguished Visiting professor at Williams College in Massachusetts. She is currently Director and Lannan Foundation Chair of Poetics of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.
