Elias Khoury

Born into an Orthodox Christian family in Beirut, Elias Khoury became a member of the Palestine National Liberation Movement after the Six-Day War between Israel and its neighboring states; he fought in the First Lebanese Civil War of 1975 against the Maronite Christian Phalange and its Israeli sponsors. “If you are a Beiruti, you are an Arab,” he said to a British reporter in 2005. “You are open to all types of cultures, and to innovating in the Arabic culture at the same time.”