Khaled Khalifa

Khaled Khalifa was born in 1964 in a village near Aleppo, Syria. He studied law but works as a screenwriter for television and cinema. Today, he is internationally regarded as one of the leading authors in the Arabic-speaking world. However, in the recent past, the official regime in his homeland has banned several of his books. He has been shortlisted twice (2008, 2014) for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), also known as the Arabic Booker. The first time was with his novel "In Praise of Hatred," and the second with "No Knives in the Kitchens of This City," a novel for which he was also awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2013. His recent work, "Death is Hard Work" (2015), was a finalist for the National Book Award in the United States in the category of Translated Literature. He continues to live in Damascus, which he consciously refuses to leave.