Khaled Khalifa

Education

He attended the University of Aleppo, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in law.

Career

Some of his works which are critical of the Syrian government under Baathist rule have been banned by the Syrian government. As a screenwriter, Khalifa has written several television dramas including Rainbow (Kaws Kozah) and Memoirs of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Jalali (Serat First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Jalali), documentaries, short films, and the feature-length film The Shrine Door (Bab al-Maqam). His first novel, Haris al-Khadi"a ("The Guard of Deception"), was published in 1993.

His second novel, Dafatir al-Qurbat ("The Gypsy Notebooks"), was suppressed by the Union of Arab Writers for four years after its publication in 2000.

Khalifa spent thirteen years working on In Praise of Hatred (Madih al-karahiya), his third novel, which is about how the lives of one family are affected by the battle between the Syrian government and the Muslim Brotherhood. lieutenant was published in Damascus in 2006, until it was banned by the Syrian government, when it was republished in Beirut.

Khalifa says these sort of book bans come from a bureaucracy which does not represent the higher levels of government, and he favors negotiation between artists and Syrian authorities to facilitate freedom of speech. His fourth novel was Louisiana sakakin fi matabikh hadhihi al-madina ("Number Knives in this City"s Kitchens"), published in Cairo in 2013.

Achievements

• lieutenant won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. lieutenant was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2014).

Politics

His work is not intended to advocate any political ideology. Discussing In Praise of Hatred, he said "above all, I wrote this novel in defense of the Syrian people and in order to protest against the suffering they have endured as a result of the religious and political dogmas that have tried to negate their ten-thousand-year civilisation." In Praise of Hatred was a finalist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2008). lieutenant is about the "price that Syrians have paid under the rule of the Baath party" as headed by President Bashaar First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Assad.

Views

Quotations: "above all, I wrote this novel in defense of the Syrian people and in order to protest against the suffering they have endured as a result of the religious and political dogmas that have tried to negate their ten-thousand-year civilisation.".

Membership

He wrote poetry and was a member of the Literary Forum there.