University Honors Lebanese Novelist Elias Khoury

Birzeit University honored Lebanese novelist, writer and critic Elias Khoury, the recipient of Mahmoud Darwish Award for Creativity, at a ceremony on March 2016. Khoury was lauded for his large and diverse literary output, his constant activism for Palestine, and generous support of Birzeit University.

University president Abdullatif Abu Hijleh [CS1] said that the university recognized Khoury’s "outstanding contribution to the profiling of Arabic literature, and his long-standing support of the Palestinian cause.”

“He is a man of great thought who has made tremendous literary contributions to the Palestinian liberation struggle,” Abu Hijleh said.

Khoury began his speech by thanking Birzeit University for this “singular and prestigious honor.” He then expressed his admiration for the Palestinian history of struggle against the occupation. “We are profoundly inspired by the growing Palestinian resistance to the Israeli violence, that continues despite such oppressive conditions, as well as the proliferating solidarity all over the world.”

“Your steadfastness, resistance and fight for your rights teach us hope and enlighten us to the meaning of determination,” Khoury said.

Elias Khoury is a Lebanese novelist, playwright, critic and a prominent public intellectual. He has published ten novels, which have been translated into several foreign languages, as well as several works of literary criticism. He has also written three plays. Between 1993 and 2009 he served as editor of Al-Mulhaq, the weekly cultural supplement of the Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Nahar. He currently teaches literature at New York University and is co-editor of the Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya published by the Institute of Palestine Studies.