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Elias KHOURI

Fellows

Elias KHOURI

writer

Fellowship : April to June 2019 then January to March 2022 - Associate member 2023 / 2024

Discipline(s) : Literature, Writing / Poetry

Area(s) of expertise : Writer

Pays : Lebanon

Research project Literature and Translation through Dialogue in Colonial Conflict Zones.

The projects sets out to explore the language of politics in conflict zones through literature and translation. It is co-authored by Lebanese writer Elias Khouri and Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani and it is envisioned as a three-year program in association with IAS-Nantes. Per proposal, Khouri and Shenhav-Shahrabani will both be invited as associate fellows to the institute, and while the pair may widely diverge intellectually, their respective bodies of work nonetheless share common ground to foster a mutually beneficial dialogue. Living and working together for several months, each year as associate fellows will allow Khouri and Shenhav-Shahrabani to tackle different perceptions on various issues, and to disseminate their insights through writing, workshops and public lectures. In the first year, the two will spearhead a team of translation of Khouri’s novels, based on Shenhav-Shahrabani’s theorization of the concept  as specified in his book, Laborers and Actors in Translation (2020,Hebrew).

In year two, they will lead a workshop on the representations of violence in literature in conflict/colonial zones with Khouri’s novels used as case studies. In the third and final year, the workshop will take on a team of translation of Palestinian Nakba literature as a test case of one such instance of historic violence.

Elias Khouri is starting the third volume of his Children of the Ghetto trilogy, entitled The Present-Absent. In this third volume, the author continues his investigation of the condition of the Palestinians, which represents the exile of man in a post-modern world which has lost its values. Why is the Present absent? This theme sums up the refugees and the uprooted and the marginalized of our time. The Palestinian experience will be the mirror of the oppressed, and the Palestinian becomes the Jew of the Jews.

 

Biography

Elias Khouri is a Lebanese writer, editor and professor. Born in Beirut in 1948, he completed his studies at the Lebanese University of Beirut. He was Global Distinguished Professor at New York University-NYU, editor-in-chief of the weekly cultural supplement of An-Nahar newspaper and co-editor of Al-Karmel magazine. He currently holds the position of editor-in-chief of the Journal of Palestinian Studies. He has published thirteen novels, four books of literary criticism, and articles in international journals. His novels have been translated into fifteen languages. In addition to being a public intellectual, he was artistic director of the Theater de Beyrouth, and co-director of the Ayloul Festival for Contemporary Art.

Bibliography

KHOURI, Elias. Les Enfants du Ghetto, Je m’appelle Adam, Paris : Actes Sud, 2018,355p.

KHOURI, Elias. Sinalcol ,Paris : Actes Sud, 2013, 478p.

 KHOURI , Elias. Comme Si Elle Dormait, Paris : Actes Sud,2007, 389p.

KHOURI, Elias. Yalo, Paris : Actes Sud, 2004, 330p.

KHOURI, Elias. La Porte DU Soleil,Pais : Actes Sud, 2004, 700p.

FELLOW FOCUS

The residency seminar of Elias Khouri and Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani took place on Monday March 14, 2022: Literatures and translation through dialogue in zones of colonial conflict

Suggestions of the week:

Film: Taste of Cement  documentary film, director: Ziad Khaltoum, screenplay: Ziad Khaltoum, Talal Khoury, Ansgar Frerich

The film follows Syrian refugees working on the construction site of a skyscraper in Beirut, forced by a curfew to sleep in the basement of the building under construction. It compares the work of workers constructing a building with images of the destruction of their country of origin in the grip of war.