Biting wit with a soft heart. This is how I remember the late Elias Khoury, a seminal figure in the evolution of the modern Arab novel. When he passed away in September of 2024, the world lost an intellectual, but I lost a friend. For two years, he had been a coach, mentor, and confidant to me before he was claimed by his illness. I learned a lot from Khoury during that time, and I am grateful for the chance to have had a glimpse into the inner workings of one of the greatest minds of this century.
The Sensitive Intellectual
I remember when he and two other friends came over for dinner at my family home. After we had finished our meal, the conversation turned, as it often did, to the Lebanese Civil War. Our guests, who were much older than me, traded stories.
My mother, who was Khoury’s editor and his right arm for almost two decades, told us about the abduction of a university colleague during the war. She told us how his mother, refusing to believe he was kidnapped, continued the ritual of preparing his food and waiting for him daily, even going as far as to iron his clothes “in case he came back home.”
“Stop, please stop,” Khoury, who was listening silently, said while covering his face with one hand. “Enough of that, change the conversation.” I looked at him closely; he seemed to be in pain.
The evening continued smoothly, and our guests did not comment on Khoury’s reaction. Later, when I got to know him, I asked him about that night.
“Do you feel other people’s pain?” I asked. His answer was to shrug modestly in a self-effacing manner which was rather uncharacteristic of him. Perhaps, there is another side to the self-assured writer.
I like to think of Khoury as the master of get-togethers and intellectual conversations, yet there was nothing phony or made up about him. He was real in the way only a writer can be real with people, and he had an unerring nose for human stories where any form of suffering was included.
Getting to know Khoury was intriguing. You never knew what he was thinking, but he could certainly read your mind. He got your point as soon as you started talking. If you were writing, he was even faster. My mother once said that working with Khoury was effortless because he immediately understood the gist of things.
Khoury memorized a great deal of poetry. He knew all the Arab poets from different epochs and memorized their verses. Often, after dinner and on our third glass of Arak, he would recite for his guests verses from the poetry of Antara Ibn Shaddad or Imru’ Alqais, or his favorite Al-Mutanabbi, to resounding applause.
The Avid Mentor
When I first met Khoury, we mostly discussed literature. We talked about Kafka, Tolstoy, Hemingway, and Faulkner, among others of which he was knowledgeable. Khoury would give me advice in my line of work as a journalist. He also trained me in fiction writing.
“Tighten your sentences,” he would instruct. “Say what you want to say, no embellishments.”
Gradually, Khoury became the confidant of my incessant stream of complaints concerning journalism in Lebanon. The industry was too small, too competitive, too constrained. He listened attentively, choosing wisely when to reply and when to remain silent. He was a master of silence, in more than one sense.
Khoury called me his “little colleague” and he took the initiative to ask my mother about me regularly. In turn, I affectionately called him “‘ammo” or “estez,” (Arabic for uncle or mister) as did all the young people who knew him. I made sure to share with him my academic accomplishments because I wanted him to be proud of me.
A month after we were first introduced in early 2021, I plucked up the courage to invite him as a guest speaker for the ‘Media and Palestine’ course I was taking at the Lebanese American University, and he agreed immediately.
I asked my peers to prepare questions for Khoury, which they did, after reading Gate of the Sun, his 1998 magnum opus. They asked about Khoury’s writing style, his championing of women’s rights, and his personal life: Why did he adopt the “stream of consciousness” writing style? Was he aware that by empowering Nahla, the heroine in Gate of the Sun, he had become an early advocate of all Arab women? And was Nahla’s character based on a real woman he had been romantically linked to?
The highlights of the discussion were Khoury’s personal coming-of-age story and his early attachment to the Palestinian cause, his literary influences, and his professional achievements. Khoury was a gifted speaker. He told a good joke for his audience, and he delved expertly into all of our questions in a way that left us fulfilled, amused, and eager to read more of his work.
Our final goodbyes
When Khoury got sick, we did not know what to expect. He suffered from ischemia. In the span of a year, his health considerably deteriorated, and his size shrunk to less than half its initial state.
I saw Khoury only twice during that time. The first visit was to his house, where I thought he was doing reasonably well, as he was able to sit on a chair and receive his guests. During our brief encounter, I asked him to officially sign my copy of Gate of the Sun. I explained I wanted a souvenir from him.
“Make it a fat signature,” I asked, smiling. He smiled back and humored me.
The second visit was at my request. I had asked to interview him for The New Arab and he accepted without hesitation. His acceptance signaled that he trusted me to tell the truth about him and his work, and I took it to heart.
When I arrived at the hospital, I wasn’t sure that he would be in the mood for an interview, but he had asked me and my mother to come up. When I saw him, he was frailer than ever. He smiled tiredly and answered my questions in a whisper.
The interview lasted seven short minutes. It was also his last interview.
Three weeks later, the interview was published. I printed it and sent a copy to Khoury, who was still in the hospital. His condition had started to rapidly decline by then, and I learned later from his daughter Abla that he never got the chance to personally read my article, but had Abla read it for him instead. I thought of all the times he had read my fiction, of all our talks, our conversations, and it struck me that this was the last time. There would be no more visits, no more mentoring, no more witty jokes. A light had gone out.
When Khoury died, tributes and obituaries came pouring in from world-class publications and intellectuals who knew him personally. But the majority of the tributes came on social media from readers who were acquainted with his brilliant novels. They felt, in a sense, that Khoury spoke to them through his stories, and one could almost feel a reverence and a fondness for Khoury through their words.
There is no doubt in my mind that Khoury had left a “dent” in the universe of literature, journalism, and academia, but his heart wasn’t in all of these. It was with Beirut and Palestine, and all the people who lived there.
