Happy Birthday, Elias Khoury, born 12 July 1948.
Quotes
- I do not believe that writing is an act of despair. On the contrary, it lies beyond despair, when a portal opens onto the darkness that is mixed with shades of light. In this darkness the ink lights up our souls and takes us to a place where we are both witness and agent, where witnessing broadens the horizons of the human situation – defending man’s right to live and dream, to rip the veil off taboos and to resist military and religious tyranny.
- We don’t make the answers: we find them and when the answer is finally written down, we find it resembles the question, because writers, as I see it, are just readers who rewrite the story they have read in the eyes of others.
- I write. And then I rewrite. And when I have a book that is finished, done, I don’t publish it. I rewrite it again, from zero. (via)
- Poetry is another way to dream. That is the role of poets — to put into words what we cannot put into words. (via)
- This isn’t the Palestinian flag. Palestine isn’t a country for it to have a flag. Palestine is a condition. Every Arab is a Palestinian. Every poor man who carries a gun is a Palestinian. Palestine is the condition of us all.
Elias Khoury is a Lebanese novelist, playwright, critic, and intellectual. He has published 10 novels, including Gate of the Sun and White Masks
, and he has written three plays.
Source for some of the quotes
Please click here for our Literary Birthday Calendar