Amin Saleh

An acclaimed Bahraini novelist, poet, screenwriter, and literary translator. Widely celebrated as one of the most inventive and influential pioneers of Gulf literature and modern cinematic writing, Saleh is the recipient of the Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Award (Novel, Story, and Drama category, 2022–2023) and was awarded the Bahrain Order of Merit (First Class) in 2007. Honored at the Saudi Film Festival (2023), he penned the screenplay for The Barrier (1990)—Bahrain’s first feature film—and has translated foundational world cinema masters into Arabic, including Andrei Tarkovsky, Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, and Abbas Kiarostami. Author of over twenty celebrated works across fiction, poetry, and stage drama—including Hostages of the Unseen, Al-Jawashin (co-authored with poet Qasim Haddad), and Northward, to a Home Longing for the South—Saleh is renowned for his lyrical visual prose, poetic surrealism, and philosophical explorations of memory and illusion.