Alzahaby was born in
Damascus, Syria, on 11 January 1946. He headed to Egypt in the early sixties to pursue his high study at the
Cairo University. He graduated with a degree in Arabic literature and was educated by writers such as
Taha Hussein and
Naguib Mahfouz. Politically he was always opposed to the regime in Syria, which made him face severe difficulties in his work and his life. He was one of the supporters of the
Damascus Declaration. He was prevented from traveling, withdrew his passport, was fired from his job as a result of his political activity and signed statements against
Hafez al-Assad's regime in 1991. He sided with the 2011 revolution in Syria against the regime, and then left the country to Egypt and then to the UAE and then Jordan and then Europe. He was an independent
liberal political social activist, wrote more than 1000 articles in Arab newspapers, and lectured in many cities around the world such as Paris,
Madrid,
Vienna,
Istanbul,
Salzburg,
Amman,
Dubai,
Cairo, Damascus,
Beirut, Algeria and
Casablanca. In 2009, an M.A. thesis in the Department of Arabic Literature was written about his novel
Time in Space at
Al-Baath University in
Homs. Alzahaby died on 4 July 2022, at the age of 76. ==Bibliography==