Khoury has managed to write a new novel that literary critics consider a special voice among his peers in Lebanon and the Arab
world, thanks to the details he has captured of his special place, the Lebanese environment, and extended his influence to the Palestinian surroundings. In his conversations, he considers this the meaning of his experience as a novelist. This explains the secret of his survival in this space, devoting himself to building his own novel structure and creating his own language, writing a series of novels that appeal to a wide readership. The most striking feature of his fictional work is the direct connection to reality, without falling into the trap of directness, and he has repeatedly spoken about the characters in his works, especially in the novels, whose paths coincide with their human destinies. He dedicated Bab al-Shams to the Palestinian asylum tragedy, relying on a large number of interviews with characters of the Nakba generation, the first immigrants to Lebanon.
Khoury represents the phenomenon of Arab intellectuals focusing on public affairs, and his life stages tell us about the journey from Palestinian guerrilla work in his youth to academic research, writing and journalism, which was his starting point, with the enthusiasm and spirit of the sixties, when he participated in an experimental magazine “Mawaqif” in 1972, at the age of 24, together with Adonis and some Arab writers from different political tendencies, facing the failed culture of 1967. The important experience later remained the editorship of the magazine “Palestinian Affairs” from 1975 to 1979 with the poet Mahmoud Darwish, and the most intense period of the Lebanese civil war. During this period, the views of the numerous researchers and writers working in the Center for Palestinian Studies, writers and intellectuals, on political and national issues crystallized more and more rapidly, and extended to the oppression and tyranny suffered by the Palestinians. The Middle East and the Arab
world were experiencing and facing a major danger, represented by the advancement of the Israeli occupation, while Beirut was an Arab capital that enjoyed special advantages and witnessed a cultural and political movement far ahead of its surroundings. Despite the impact of the civil war, publishing houses continued to publish new books, and newspapers flourished as never before, including daily newspapers such as Al-Safir and Al-Nahar, and weekly publications such as Al-Hawadith, Al-Isbo’ Al-Arabi and Al-Sayyad.
Khoury made his mark in journalism, becoming one of the most prominent actors in the cultural
world, serving as editor-in-chief of the cultural section of the newspaper Al-Safir between 1983 and 1990, and then as editor-in-chief of the cultural supplement Al-Nahar from 1993 to 2009. He left an important mark in both places, but the Al-Nahar supplement also became a cultural, political and critical platform for the Arab situation. During this period, he gave a platform to many writers and intellectuals who were against Syria. Because of his boldness, he had to accept high-profile pens that were looking for spaces for opinions and freedom of expression that were not available anywhere else in Syria or in the Lebanese media, most of which were conciliatory to the regime. The Secretariat should note that the Al-Nahar Cultural Supplement continued to follow a line against the Syrian regime itself, under the supervision of the poet Akel Avit. In any case, the newspaper paid a high price for its firm stance on freedom of expression for Syrian writers, including the assassination in December 2005 of its chairman of the board, Gebran Tueni.
Khoury’s experience in the “Democratic Left” movement was one of his key stops, which, despite its brief duration, constituted a milestone in Lebanese political life, before the movement retreated following the assassination of its theorist and one of its most prominent leaders, the writer and journalist Samir Kassir, in June 2005. The movement was most notable for its slogans centered around Lebanon’s liberation from the tutelage of the Syrian regime, democracy in Syria, and the liberation of Palestine from occupation. Khoury’s position on the events of the Arab Spring, in which some Arab intellectuals hesitated, was outstanding, and he had a famous opinion on this, saying: “Some intellectuals defended dictatorships because of the fear of Islamists, which is crazy and a fear. This is a big mistake made by intellectuals and is repeated by some left-wing forces in the Arab world today. ” Despite the ferocity of the counter-revolution, the crumbling of the Spring, and Israel’s war of annihilation against the Palestinian people, he did not retreat or despair, continuing to write a weekly newspaper column from his sickbed throughout the year and completing an article that he described in a conversation as a qualitative complement to his previous work.
