Elias Khoury

was born in Beirut in 1948. A polymath literary critic, journalist, novelist, playwright, academic and intellectual, he is presently editor-in-chief of Mulhak, the weekly literary supplement of An-Nahar newspaper and Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. He has authored eleven novels with many published in translation, four works of literary criticism, and three plays.

In 2000 he was awarded the Prize of Palestine for Gate of the Sun, and in 2006 its English translation by Humphrey Davies won the inaugural Banipal Arabic Literary Translation Prize. For details click here.

In December 2007 he was awarded the prestigious Owais Prize for fiction writing.

In January 2010 the translation of his novel Yalo won the fifth year's award of the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. For details click here.