Khaled Khalifa
Author
The Syrian author Khaled Khalifa (1964–2023) is one of the most important Arab authors. He studied law at the University of Aleppo, was co-founder and editor of the literary magazine "Alif" and was the author of numerous novels as well as scripts for cinema films and television series. His works have been translated into over 20 languages.
Read
- In Syriens Hoffnungslosigkeit half ihm die Literatur – zum Tod von Khaled Khalifa
- Syrischer Schriftsteller Khaled Khalifa ist tot
- In Diktaturen ist nicht alles tapfer
- Lisa Marti und Khaled Khalifa bringen Syrien nach Glarus
- Mit progressiven Figuren reizt er die Zensurbehörden
- «Ich habe aber auch ein wenig Heimweh»
- Als wäre es der Jüngste Tag
- «In Syrien ist es so schlimm, dass sich einige fragen: War es nicht besser im Krieg?»
- Der Autor, der in Syrien ausharrt
Watch & Listen
“Death is Hard Work”
“Forty years earlier Abdel Latif had picked up his tin suitcase and left his village for good, after he had failed to support his sister Layla in her refusal to marry a man she didn’t love. Not even when she said, “I’ll set myself on fire before I marry a man who stinks of rotten onions.” And, sure enough, on the day of the wedding she had been forced into, she stood on the roof of her family’s tall house in her white dress, poured out a jug of kerosene, and set herself alight, carrying out the threat no one had taken seriously. She whirled around like a Sufi to best let the flames take her body, which had become a charred corpse before anyone could reach her. Abdel Latif had watched her from a distance, weeping for her silently, as his three children were doing now for him: despite how bad life had become, death could still seem terribly cruel.”
— From “Death is Hard Work" (Faber & Faber, London 2019)