Böcker av Elias Khoury

In a makeshift hospital in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Yunis, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma.

"Originally published in the Arabic language as Awlad al-ghittu, Ismi Adam by Dar al-Adab, Beirut, 2012"--Copyright page.

Yalo propels us into a skewed universe of brutal misunderstanding, of love and alienation, of self-discovery and luminous transcendence. At the center of the vortex stands Yalo, a young man drifting between worlds like a stray dog on the streets of Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. Living with his mother who "lost her face in the mirror," he falls in with a dangerous circle whose violent escapades he treats as a game. The game becomes a horrifying reality, however, when Yalo is accused of rape and armed robbery, and is imprisoned. Tortured and interrogated at length, he is forced to confess to crimes of which he has little or no recollection. As he writes, and rewrites his testimony, he begins to grasp his family's past, and the true Yalo begins to emerge. Ha'aretz calls Yalo "a heartbreaking book . . . hypnotic in beauty."

An homage to dreaming--"the only way escaping oppression"--by the author of "New York Times" Notable Book "Gate of the Sun."

New York Times Notable Book of the Year "An imposingly rich and realistic novel, a genuine masterwork" that vividly captures the Palestinian experience following the creation of the Israeli state (New York Times Book Review) After Palestine is torn apart in 1948, two men remain alone in a deserted makeshift hospital in the Shatila camp on the outskirts of Beirut--entering a vast world of displacement, fear, and tenuous hope. Khalil holds vigil at the bedside of his patient and spiritual father, a storied leader of the Palestinian resistance who has slipped into a coma. As Khalil attempts to revive Yunes, he begins a story, which branches into many: stories of the people expelled from their villages in Galilee; of the massacres that followed; of the extraordinary inner strength of those who survived; and of love. Khalil--like Elias Khoury--is a truth collector, trying to make sense of the fragments and various versions of stories that have been told to him. His voice is intimate and direct, his memories are vivid, his humanity radiates from every page. Khalil lets his mind wander through time, from village to village, from one astonishing soul to another, and takes us with him. Gate of the Sun is a Palestinian Odyssey and the first magnum opus of the Palestinian saga. Beautifully weaving together haunting stories of survival and loss, love and devastation, memory and dream, Khoury humanizes the complex Palestinian struggle as he brings to life the story of an entire people.

A moving novel about Palestine's Calamity, for readers of Amos Oz and Orhan Pamuk - by the finest living Arabic novelist

A harrowing and hypnotic novel from the author of Gate of the Sun.