HILALI Husam
Country: Sudan
Year of Birth: 1986
Biography
Husam Hilali is a multidisciplinary writer, published author, and TV professional from Sudan. He was born and raised in Saudi Arabia before moving to Egypt, where he studied biotechnology. Hilali has worked in various fields and media since 2003, focusing on arts, society, and literature across functions such as cultural management, theater, journalism, digital media, and scriptwriting. He is an alumnus of the Middle East Media Initiative program (MEMI) in TV show writing at the University of South California’s School of Cinema (2019).
Hilali started his career as a writer in 2003 when he published a short story online. This was followed by a first short story collection, After Take-off, Before Landing, published by Sanabel Al Ketab Books in Cairo (2008). His second collection, The Last Days of Khartoum, was published by El Kotob Khan in 2019.
In 2013, Hilali co-founded the first Sudanese citizen journalism platform, 3ayin.com, to cover the civil war in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in Sudan while working as a news editor based in Kenya. Husam also worked as a fixer in several feature reportages with international correspondents across Sudan. We also collaborated as a screenplay writer and consultant with Sudanese film director Mohamed Kordofani on his feature film Goodbye Julia (2023), featured at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 in the “Un certain regard” category. After many published articles in different Arabic, English, and German magazines, newspapers, and web platforms, Hilali shifted from journalism to TV production in 2017.
Hilali was part of the selection to the Abdel Moneim El Sawy Award for the Short Story in 2005 and won Osama Al Danasoury’s Poetry Award in 2018 for his unpublished book “A Suitable Balcony for Suicide.” He was shortlisted for the Mustafa Al Husseiny Award For Best Article By A Young Arab Journalist 2017 for his article: ‘Stay Home: Five New Factors in Sudan Civil Disobedience’ published in Mada Masr. In 2021, he was one of the 10 authors selected among hundreds of applicants to become a First Chapter Fellow by the Emirates Literature Foundation and Seddiqi Fellowship Program for writers.
Titles
After Take-off, Before Landing | All lathi baad al iqlaa wa al lati qabl al rujoo, Sanabel Al Ketab Books, Cairo, 2008
The Last Days of Khartoum | Ayyam al Khartoum al akhira, El Kotob Khan, 2019
Coming soon
Hilali is currently working on his first full length novel, beautifully marked by his curiosity, reflections on writing, and his relationship to the West, as well as by his unique sense of humor.