Elias Khoury

“How to write Beirut?—with words and images that stumble with weariness, that collapse from the heat, from the stone which composes them only to crumble in turn?—This is why Elias Khoury’s fiction is so powerful. The intent of the writing is to restore its soul.”

Born in Beirut in 1948—Elias Khoury—“is an artist giving voice to rooted exiles and trapped refugees, to dissolving boundaries and changing identities, to radical demands and new languages”.

Elias Khoury’s commitment to Palestinian human rights began when he visited a refugee camp in Jordan at nineteen. Khoury has been an advocate ever since, devoting his energies to the Palestine Research Center in Beirut and speaking out in articles, essays and through his fiction.

In 1972, with Adonis and other writers, he created the newspaper Mawaqif. Later, Mahmoud Darwish would join the editorial group. During the Civil War of 1975, Khoury fought and was almost blinded. He continued to work as a journalist for Shu’un Filastin, Al-Karmel, Al-Safir—and is currently editor-in-chief of Al-Mulhaq, the cultural supplement of Al-Nahar, Beirut’s daily newspaper and a Global Distinguished professor of Middle Easter and Islamic Studies at New York University.

Elias Khoury is the author of twelve novels—which includes Little Mountain, City Gates, The Kingdom of Strangers, Gate of the Sun, and Yalo—four volumes of literary criticism and three plays.

“Because the world is the way it is, because whole groups of people can be maligned, neglected, ignored—for too many years—we need the voice of Elias Khoury.”

Elias Khoury lives in Beirut.