BEIRUT: Novelist Elias Khoury, one of Lebanon’s most renowned writers and a fervent advocate of the Palestinian cause, died on Sunday from illness aged 76, sources close to his family said.

Khoury, who was born in 1948 to a Christian family in Beirut, died in the Lebanese capital where he had been hospitalised for months, the sources said.

Over several decades Khoury produced a large body of work in Arabic that touched on the themes of collective memory, war and exile, alongside writing for newspapers, teaching literature and editing a publication linked to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Many of his books were translated into foreign languages including French, English, German, Hebrew and Spanish.

One of his best-known novels, “Gate of the Sun”, tells the story of Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes in 1948 during the war that coincided with Israel’s foundation.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out or expelled from their homes during that war, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe in Arabic. The novel was made into a film by Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah.

Khoury also wrote about Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war in novels like “Little Mountain” and “Yalo”.

A champion of the Palestinian cause since his youth, Khoury was co-managing editor of the PLO-linked Palestinian Affairs magazine from 1975 to 1979, together with poet Mahmoud Darwish.Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2024