On Sunday, May 2nd in Le Skyroom at the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF), audience members were graced with the thoughtful poetics of author Elias Khoury in a conversation moderated by Neil Gordon (novelist, literary editor, reviewer and professor of literature at Eugene Lang College of The New School University in New York City).
Largely discussing his newly translated novel entitled White Masks (a novel that centers on the Palestinians displaced by the war of 1958 and the systematic brutalization of Beirut), Khoury explained that in re-reading his novel in preparation for its re-release (it was originally published in 1981 during the Lebanese Civil War which ran from 1975-1990), he realized how very little progress had been made in the region of the Middle East since first writing it, particularly with regards to the numerous Israel-Palestine issues. During the writing of the book while in Beirut in 1979, Khoury left his desk to go to the dining room at which point a bomb went off next door. In a poignant moment, he explained that he believes that White Masks saved his life.
In a story reminiscent of Mr. Ruy-Sánchez's image of the goat-covered trees, Khoury explained that a friend once came to him, emphatically telling him that he had seen one of the characters from Khoury's novel. Highly doubtful and dismissive, the friend was adamant that Khoury be driven to see this man and upon approaching, in fact found a man dressed in the same coat as one of his characters in the novel painting the walls of the city white. "Reality can become imagination and imagination can become reality," Khoury said smiling.
Attempting to mirror the fractured reality of Beirut, Khoury cited his decision to write in complex narratives requiring a great amount of effort from the writer. He wanted to write reality as he felt and lived it, to illustrate that Lebanon's reality is one of fragility, weakness, and fragmentation, lined with stupidity as well as great amounts of love. Also a driving force to write the novels that he writes ("Politics and the novel are an indispensable case," Khoury stated), is the fact that during the Arabic Renaissance the Lebanese civil wars simply were not written about and while oral tradition exists to tell the stories, writing is an indispensable tool for rethinking what happened in the past. The role of the writer, Khoury stated, "is to be critical, even to ourselves" and it was in this light that Khoury criticized the fact that all too often religion has been used in tandem with politics and that any sense of the absolute moves against our human development ("To go to the absolute is to destroy life").
In some very insightful moments to the role(s) of literature, Khoury stated that all ("good") literature will attempt restitution through the written word, try to change the ways in which people see and make us as human beings more sensitive to the world(s) around us, opening us up to a new perspective as readers to become part of the writing process. More important than history to Elias is the story of the human experience and literature can accomplish this through the creation of not one but multiple mirrors capable of picking up the real men and women involved in the daily moments that compose the longue duree of the historical eye.
Asked near the end of the discussion who Khoury writes for, he stated that he writes for writing in a travel towards things which he does not know. The problem of audience, Khoury stated, cannot be part of the life of the writer writing literature.
Throughout the conversation, Gordon's questions were well-posed, succinctly stated and Khoury, in a mindful, tempered manner, responded thoughtfully and often poetically to the benefit of all those in attendance. One can only imagine that his novels display the same mindfulness.
Listen to the whole event: here
Panelist's Bios (click on their names to go to their works):
Neil Gordon (Moderator): the literary editor at The Boston Review. He is the author of three novels (Sacrifice of Isaac; The Gunrunner’s Daughter, andThe Company You Keep); reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review and has written for magazines ranging from Tricycle andSalon to Tin House.
Elias Khoury: the author of 12 novels, including Gate of the Sun, Yalo, White Masks, Little Mountain, and City Gates. In 1998, he was awarded the Palestine Prize for Gate of the Sun, and in 2000, the novel was named Le Monde Diplomatique’s Book of the Year.
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