EUME Discussion: Elias Khoury “The Spring and the Blood in Syria” – Media Feedback
The discussion with Elias Khoury (Beirut/New York University) took place within the framework of Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe (EUME), a research program at the Forum Transregionale Studien, and was arranged within EUME’s annual theme on the relation between culture and politics.
Under the title “The Spring and the Blood in Syria” Elias Khoury tried to analyze the current situation in Syria in relation to the ongoing revolutionary process in the Arab World. Wolf Lepenies (Former Rector & Permanent Fellow em. Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) introduced and chaired the session on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin.
Please find a video of the EUME Discussion on the website of the Forum Transregionale Studien or via the following link: Audio/Video.
Following the discussion Elias Khoury talked to Christine Watty from Deutschlandradio Kultur. Here you will find the interview and an audio file.
Andreas Pflitsch from the Berliner Tagesspiegel interviewed Elias Khoury (PDF). www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/interview-zu-syrien-elias-khoury-revolutionen-dauern-lange/8432846.html
Elias Khoury is a novelist, playwright, critic and a prominent public intellectual. He studied history and sociology in Beirut and Paris. From 1976 to 1979, Khoury, with the Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish, published the journal Shu’un filastiniyya (Palestinian Affairs). In the 1990s, he was the editor of the cultural supplement of the Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar, and director of the theater masrah beirut. Elias Khoury has taught at Columbia University, the American University of Beirut, the Lebanese University, and the Lebanese American University, and is Globally Distinguished Professor for Arabic and Comparative Literature at New York University. During the academic year 2010-11, he has been a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He is the author of more than ten novels and literary works which have been translated into several languages. Among his recent novels translated into English are Gate of the Sun (Beirut 1998, tr. by Humphrey Davies 2006; winner of the Prize of Palestine in 1998 and named Le Monde Diplomatique’s Book of the Year in 2002, it was made into a five-hour feature film in 2003 by director Yousry Nasrallah, as well as a play staged in the West Bank city of Ramallah.); Yalo (Beirut 2002, tr. twice by Humphrey Davies and Peter Theroux 2008, best translated Book Award 2009, shortlist); As Though She Were Sleeping (Beirut 2007, tr. by Marilyn Booth 2011).