Past Events

The Fellowship team are delighted to announce that Syrian author Khaled Khalifa has taken up the 2022 Banipal Visiting Writer Fellowship following the cancellation of his 2021 Fellowship due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The Fellowship is based on the three cornerstones that form the core of Banipal magazine: that Arab literature is an essential part of world culture and human civilisation; that dialogue between different cultures needs to be continually deepened; and that the joy and enlightenment to be gained from reading beautiful poetry and imaginative writing is an integral part of human existence.

• Khaled Khalifa, born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1964, is a novelist, screenwriter and poet living in Damascus. In addition to six novels to date, he has written numerous scripts for TV dramas and films, several of which have won awards. Three of his novels are published in English translation, all translated by Leri Price, with Death is Hard Work winning the 2019 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation as well as being a finalist in the US National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Earlier novels have been shortlisted for both Arabic and translation literary awards with No Knives in the Kitchens of this City being awarded the 2017 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. Khalifa’s latest work Lam Yasulli ’alayhum Ahad (No One Prayed Over Their Graves) is a historical novel set in Aleppo. It was longlisted for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. An extract can be read in Banipal 70, translated by Leri Price (the whole book is due out later this year), and a review of the Arabic original by Katia al-Tawil.

• The annual Banipal Visiting Writer Fellowship was established five years ago in October 2016 by St Aidan’s College of the University of Durham and Banipal magazine of modern Arab literature, with the support of the British Council, for a published author writing in Arabic. The residency of one academic term is based each year at St Aidan’s College, providing a unique space for the Fellow to reflect and to write and also have the opportunity to share their work with British audiences.