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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Gate of the Sun

Gate of the Sun

From many true-life tales collected throughout Lebanon and its refugee camps over the course of seven years, Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga, putting human faces to a political tragedy at the forefront of the news even today.

In a makeshift hospital in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Yunis, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma. His spiritual son Dr Khaleel ­­- who has no real medical qualifications – nurses the older man, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness.

In an attempt to revive his patient, Khaleel, like a modern-day Sheherazade, begins telling Yunis the stories of their people’s exile in Lebanon. He evokes deserted peasant villages, the suffering caused by the Lebanese civil war and the refugees’ hopes to return home with a subtle mixture of anger and compassion. Khaleel also narrates Yunis’ own extraordinary life: his childhood in Palestine and his commitment as a member of the fedayeen.

Writers in Translation helped with the launch of Gate of the Sun, the fourth PEN supported title, by hosting Elias Khoury in conversation with Tariq Ali in November 2005.

Author

Elias Khoury

Elias Khoury

Books

Gate of the Sun

Yalo

Elias Khoury was born in Beirut 1948 and is one of the most distinguished writers and intellectuals in the contemporary Arab world. Khoury received degrees in History and Sociology. He founded several literary magazines and served as the cultural editor of the Beirut’s daily al-Safir. He is currently the editor of the weekly literary supplement of the newspaper al-Nahar. He has taught at the American University in Beirut, Columbia University, and New York University.

He is the author of eleven novels including Little Mountain, Gates of the City and The Journey of Little Gandhi, two plays (which have been performed in Beirut, Cairo, Paris, Vienna, and Basel), as well as several volumes of critical essays and short stories. Many of his works have been published in France with Actes Sud and Arlea, including La Porte du Soleil.

He was the artistic director of the Theatre of Beirut for six years and is now co-director of the Ayloul Theatre Festival in Beirut.  He is one of the 14 Arab intellectuals (including Edward Said and poets Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis) who signed a statement in protest of a neo-nazi conference that was to be held in Beirut.

Translator

Humphrey Davies

Humphrey Davies

Books

Gate of the Sun

The Yacoubian Building

Yalo

I Was Born There, I Was Born Here

Humphrey Davies holds a PhD in Near East Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He has spent 36 years working and living in the Arab world – 20 of these in Egypt, with lengthy periods in Palestine, Sudan and Tunisia.  He works out of Arabic (both formal and four dialects: Egyptian Arabic, Sudanese, Tunisian and Palestinian).

His translations include Ala’ Al-Aswani’s The Yacoubian Building, Naguib Mahfouz’s Thebes at War and Sayed Ragab’s ‘El Far’ (‘Rat’) – a short story in Egyptian Arabic, published in Banipal Magazine (Summer 2002)

In addition to his translation work, he has worked for the Ford Foundation in Cairo and Khartoum; for the Save the Children Federation; and for Oxford University Press. He is based in Cairo.

Published by

Harvill Secker, 2005
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From many true-life tales collected throughout Lebanon and its refugee camps over the course of seven years, Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga, putting human faces to a political tragedy at the forefront of the news even today.

In a makeshift hospital in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Yunis, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma. His spiritual son Dr Khaleel ­­- who has no real medical qualifications – nurses the older man, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness.

In an attempt to revive his patient, Khaleel, like a modern-day Sheherazade, begins telling Yunis the stories of their people’s exile in Lebanon. He evokes deserted peasant villages, the suffering caused by the Lebanese civil war and the refugees’ hopes to return home with a subtle mixture of anger and compassion. Khaleel also narrates Yunis’ own extraordinary life: his childhood in Palestine and his commitment as a member of the fedayeen.

Writers in Translation helped with the launch of Gate of the Sun, the fourth PEN supported title, by hosting Elias Khoury in conversation with Tariq Ali in November 2005.

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