Elias Khoury at Words without Borders
Words Without Borders is featuring the new translation of Elias Khoury's "Yalo" in its Book Club page. The section includes an introduction to the book, with a good analysis of Khoury's style, and a discussion by translator Paul Theroux of the process of translating this work. There is also an open discussion forum, and more articles will be posted throughout the month.
Khoury is probably best known for his novel "Bab El-Shems" (The Gate of the Sun), a large, dense work based to a great extent on oral interviews Khoury conducted with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. I took a class with Khoury at NYU a few years back (he teaches there every Spring). Since he's not only a major novelist but a major intellectual figure in Lebanon, it was a great way to learn about Lebanese literary and political history. I admire his work, although sometimes it strikes me as stylized and ideologically (for lack of a better word) driven. He's definitely a post-modern writer; his work, which often involves repetitions and conflicting narratives, addresses the very problems of giving a coherent narrative of events. This strikes me as a theme that is particularly relevant to Lebanon, where it seems to me that arriving at a common, agreed-upon history has long been a challenge. I was also struck by what he told us of his writing process; he writes his stream-of-consciousness books in several drafts; he writes once, then starts over, without referring to the original, and re-writes the whole novel several times.
Khoury is probably best known for his novel "Bab El-Shems" (The Gate of the Sun), a large, dense work based to a great extent on oral interviews Khoury conducted with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. I took a class with Khoury at NYU a few years back (he teaches there every Spring). Since he's not only a major novelist but a major intellectual figure in Lebanon, it was a great way to learn about Lebanese literary and political history. I admire his work, although sometimes it strikes me as stylized and ideologically (for lack of a better word) driven. He's definitely a post-modern writer; his work, which often involves repetitions and conflicting narratives, addresses the very problems of giving a coherent narrative of events. This strikes me as a theme that is particularly relevant to Lebanon, where it seems to me that arriving at a common, agreed-upon history has long been a challenge. I was also struck by what he told us of his writing process; he writes his stream-of-consciousness books in several drafts; he writes once, then starts over, without referring to the original, and re-writes the whole novel several times.