Kamal Al-Solaylee

Kamal Al-Solaylee (born 1964) is a Canadian journalist, who published his debut book, Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes, in 2012.

Kamal Al-Solaylee
Al-Solaylee at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in 2016
Born	Aden, Yemen
Occupation	Writer, journalist
Nationality	Canadian
Period	2000s-present
Notable works	Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes

Born in Aden, his family went into exile in Beirut and Cairo following the British decolonization of Yemen in 1967.[1] Following a brief return to Yemen in his 20s, Al-Solaylee moved to London to complete his PhD in English, before moving to Canada.[1]

He has worked extensively as a journalist in Canada, including work for The Globe and Mail, Report on Business, the Toronto Star, the National Post, The Walrus, Xtra! and Toronto Life.

His book Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes is a memoir of his experience as a gay man growing up in the Middle East.[2] The book was a shortlisted nominee for the 2012 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction,[3] the 2013 Lambda Literary Award in the Gay Memoir/Biography category,[4] and the 2013 Toronto Book Award.[5]

He served on the jury of the 2012 Dayne Ogilvie Prize, a literary award for emerging LGBT writers in Canada, selecting Amber Dawn as that year's winner. He is on the jury for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize.[6]

Intolerable was selected for the 2015 edition of Canada Reads, where it was defended by actress Kristin Kreuk.[7]

His second book, Brown: What Being Brown in the World Today Means (To Everyone), was published in 2016.[8] The book was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2016 Governor General's Awards,[9] and won the 2017 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.[10]