Ilyās Khūrī

Elias Khoury

A journalist researches the death of a civil servant whose body was found in a garbage pile, uncovering the tumultuous events and tragedies of the civil war in Lebanon as he questions the man's wife, a watchman, a militia man, and the doctor who performed the autopsy.

White Masks

riwāyah

Sīnālkūl

In a search through the lore of war-ravaged Lebanon, Elias Khoury weaves tales within tales.

The Kingdom of Strangers

"He was born in Mashta Hasan, ran away from his father, who took him to his grandfather's cave, worked in the Miftah bakery in Tripoli, moved to Beirut where he worked in Abu Ayoun's restaurant, and then worked as a shoe shiner. He got married and had two children, Husn and Suad. Husn was a barber, and Suad was sick. He loved life and loved the flavor of it. Alice told him, and the Reverend Amin befriended him, and Davis turned him into a restaurant owner, and the dog died, and Gandhi grieved over the dog more than he grieved for his own father". Such was the journey of Abd al-Karim (Husn al-Ahmadi al-Mughayiri), nicknamed Little Gandhi. As told by Alice to the one who tells the story here, it is, however, not so simple. In the hands of Elias Khoury, the tale of this humble shoe shiner living and working in Beirut during the recent Lebanese war is also the story of a city, perhaps a world, coming apart at the seams. First published in Beirut, where it has gone through several printings, The Journey of Little Gandhi is representative of Khoury's distinctive style and narrative technique as well as his consistent exploration of Beirut as the locus of competing historical and political forces. As such, the book also reflects the author's significant, ongoing contribution to modern Arab literature.

The Journey of Little Gandhi

When Yalo is accused of rape and imprisoned, he begins to sort through his twisted memories of childhood, life as a solider, and the crimes he did or did not commit.

Yalo

Peter Altenberg

Witold Gombrowicz

Julio Cortázar

Gérard de Nerval

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

Bill Johnston

Maḥmūd Darwīsh

Breyten Breytenbach

Magdalena Tulli

Richard Sieburth

Michael Henry Heim

Richard Zenith

Peter Wortsman

Francis Ponge

Peter Theroux

I︠U︡riĭ Rytkhėu

Archipelago Books

Jill Schoolman

Lee Fahenstock

Daniel Slager

Robert Bonono

Stinehour Press

Collection consists of the papers of the Press, including correspondence with authors, translators and advertisers; typescripts and manuscripts of books published; proof copies; and dust-jackets. International authors represented in the collection include: Breyten Breytenbach; Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar; Francis Ponge; Julio Cortázar; Tadeusz Rozewicz; Marguerite Duras; Robert Musil; Henri Michaux; Elias Khoury; João Cabral de Melo Neto; Witold Gombrowicz; and Jean Giono. Translators represented include: Michael Henry Heim; Richard Sieburth; Richard Zenith; Lee Fahenstock; Bill Johnston; Peter Wortsman; Daniel Slager; Robert Bonono; and Peter Theroux.

Papers

In a search through the lore of war-ravaged Lebanon, Elias Khoury weaves tales within tales. Among them are the stories of a Lebanese monk murdered in Jerusalem; of Faysal, an eleven-year-old Palestinian boy who witnesses the massacre of his parents, brothers, and sisters; of a friendship between an Arab and a Jew who meet in New York City; and of Widad, "the Circassian", a girl kidnapped from her village in Azerbaijan and sold as a maid in Beirut to Iskander Naffaa, who subsequently falls in love with her and abandons everything to marry her. The novel takes place beside the Dead Sea and on the hills of Jerusalem, in the streets of Beirut, in the remote mountain villages of Lebanon, and in the alleys of Shatilla Refugee Camp. With every setting, Khoury elicits the legends and folk tales of the surroundings, tapping events from the turbulent history of the Middle East to divine the ways in which truths become myths and stories. To Khoury's narrator, these stories eventually grow to signify much more than the reality he lives day to day.

Alice, ancienne prostituée devenue femme de service dans un hôtel de passe à Beyrouth, raconte au narrateur les multiples histoires qui font d'elle la gardienne d'une mémoire collective. Surtout depuis ce jour de septembre 1982 - juste après l'entrée des Israéliens dans Beyrouth - où elle a trouvé dans la rue le corps du cireur de chaussures Abdelkarim, surnommé "le petit Gandhi". Autour de cet homme, de son fils Hosn le coiffeur, de sa fille Soâd la "demeurée", du pasteur Amin qui devint fou, de l'Américain Davis, inconsolable depuis la mort de son chien, de la voluptueuse madame Noha, de l'impresario (le proxénète) Abou Jamil et de tant d'autres se tissent les mille et une nuits des passions humaines - quête de sagesse, mirages d'amour ou de fortune -, qui toutes confluent vers le chaos de la guerre promise.

Le voyage du petit Gandhi

Le petit homme et la guerre

"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. Interweaving 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.

Gate of the Sun

Beirut in the 1930s: a young woman has the gift of seeing the past in her dreams, and she can also predict the future. Over the course of three nights, Milia recalls her love affair with Mansour, between Beirut and Nazareth, and dreams of episodes in the lives of her family: of a grandmother who regains her virginity after the birth of her son; of the bizarre death of an uncle, who accidentally hangs himself by a church-bell rope; of her relationship with her mother. Dreams are a way to escape all forms of oppression, whether from family, religion or politics; Milia's visions are of a kind of Garden of Eden, of frangipani trees and orange blossom, and yet she foretells the political and social transformations to come: Jewish immigration to Palestine, the influence of foreign Christian missions and the Westernization of morality. As Though She Were Sleeping is a reminder of what life once was in the Middle East; Elias Khoury has again crafted a compelling and many-layered narrative of great sensuality.

Ilyās Khūrī

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