Yusuf DeLorenzo, using AJ Lewis as a pen name, is the author of the award-winning Muhammad Amalfi Mysteries. While a graduate student outside his native United States, Yusuf translated works from Arabic, Persian and Urdu. His novels are infused with a love of history and seek to bridge cultural differences through sharing adventures and challenging situations. Yusuf lives in Florida.
The aim of Yusuf's fiction is to describe the world, not to inform it, and the code he writes by was articulated elegantly by D. L. Doctorow: "Facts are the images of history, just as images are the facts of fiction," and by Hannah Arendt: "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
AJ spoke at the annual conference of the Historical Novel Society in May of 2019 in Washington, DC on the subject of Algiers under the Turkish Regency, titled: “Ruling the Waves in North Africa or Waving the Rules: the Ottoman States 1510-1830.”
His fiction has received critical acclaim from authors and editors worldwide. A Graveyard in Algiers, Book Four in the Muhammad Amalfi series, was runner up in the UK's 2017 Beverly Awards. An Admirer of Books, Book Two in the series, won Gold in the Annual Royal Palm Awards of the Florida Writers Association. An Affair of Honor (then titled: A Runaway in Algiers) was a finalist in the annual William Faulkner Awards for fiction in 2018.
AJ / Yusuf is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Florida Writers Association and the Mystery Writers of America.
