Lias Saoudi

Lias Kaci Saoudi is a writer, artist and musician, and the front man of genre-bending iconoclasts Fat White Family. Born to a British mother and Algerian father, he grew up in the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland, before moving to London to study Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art. During the first UK lockdown, Lias began contributing a series of unflinching autobiographical pieces entitled Life Beyond the Neutral Zone to the online cultural hub, The Social Gathering. His first book, Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure, co-written with Adelle Stripe (Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, Bloomsbury, 2019), is described by Miranda Sawyer in The Observer as “the story of a band that’s always on the brink: of stardom, of madness, of brilliance, of disgrace”. It was published by White Rabbit in 2022, and became an instant Sunday Times Bestseller. Lias’s work has also been published by Unherd, INQUE magazine, and The New Frontier: Reflections From the Irish Border (New Island Books, 2021) - an anthology of new writing from some of Ireland’s greatest contemporary authors marking the centenary of partition. Lias was also guest editor of Ambit Pop, a special issue of the venerable quarterly arts magazine. His second book, Tears of the Patriarch, will be published by White Rabbit in February 2027.