Khūrī, Ilyās

Elias Khoury (Arabic: إلياس خوري; 12 July 1948 – 15 September 2024) was a Lebanese novelist and advocate of the Palestinian cause. His novels and literary criticism have been translated into several languages. In 2000, he won the Prize of Palestine for his book Gate of the Sun, and he won the Al Owais Award for fiction writing in 2007. Khoury also wrote three plays and two screenplays. From 1993 to 2009, Khoury served as an editor of Al-Mulhaq, the weekly cultural supplement of the Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Nahar. He also taught at universities in Middle Eastern and European countries, and the United States. The ongoing struggles of Palestinians under occupation was a theme in much of his work.