Sat, Mar 12
|Contact Theatre
Writing in the Time of War: a Conversation with Khaled Khalifa
Khaled Khalifa was our guest at the first Celebrating Syria Festival 2017 on skype from Damascus. Five years on, and he will be with us again, in person this time, to tell us about his experience of writing in the time of war, or writing the war.
Time & Location
Mar 12, 2022, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM GMT
Contact Theatre, Oxford Rd, Manchester M15 6JA, UK
About the Event
Khaled Khalifa was our guest at the first Celebrating Syria Festival 2017 when he joined on skype from Damascus. Five years on, and having written two more critically acclaimed novels, Khalifa will be with us in person, to tell us about his experience in the last 11 years of writing in the time of war, or writing the war.
A rare opportunity to meet one of Syria’s most celebrated novelists.
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. No One Prayed Over Their Graves will be published by Faber and Faber in the UK in September and FSG, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, in the USA.