Kamal Al-Solaylee

Who is Kamal Al-Solaylee?

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

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

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. He is currently the director of the undergraduate journalism program at Ryerson University.

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

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.