Elias Khoury

(born in 1948) is a Lebanese writer, literary critic, and prominent public intellectual and cultural activist, who plays an important role in the Arab cultural scene. Advocate for freedom of speech and democracy. He studied sociology and history at the Lebanese University of Beirut and the University of Paris, then began his career as a literary critic with Searching for a Horizon: The Arabic Novel After the Defeat of 1967 (1974). His first novel was On the Relations of the Circle (1975). Khoury is also known as a playwright – his plays have been produced in Beirut, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Basel. His literature is notable for its complex approach to political themes and for posing fundamental questions about human behaviour. The narrative technique he uses often includes an internal monologue akin to a stream of consciousness. He has published four books on literary criticism, numerous articles and reviews, and twelve novels translated into many languages, including Broken Mirrors: Sinocal (2012), My Name is Adam: Children of the Ghetto Volume 1 (2018) and Stella Maris (2019).