Khaled Khalifa
Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa toured the UK in 2014 as part of the ‘Syria Speaks’ book tour, a project that shone the light on the concept of culture as a critical line of defense against tyranny.
Khaled Khalifa was born in 1964, in a village close to Aleppo, Syria. He is the fifth child of a family of thirteen siblings. He studied law at Aleppo University and actively participated in the foundation of Aleph magazine with a group of writers and poets. A few months later, the magazine was closed down by the Syrian authorities.
He currently lives in Damascus where he writes scripts for cinema and television. Khalifa’s In Praise of Hatred – published secretly in Damascus and banned forty days later – was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008. Set in and around 1980’s Aleppo, the story unpicks a life lived under dictatorship and loudly echoes the violence across the Middle East and the Arab world over. His work has been internationally recognised and awarded.
You can read about Khaled Khalifa’s work on Jadaliya and on The Independent.
