Interview with Khalid Khalifa by Abdul Rahman Latif. This interview has been edited and reorganized for clarity.
Khalid Khalifa is Syria’s leading writer whose novels are held in high esteem around the Arab world. Khalifa’s book, “In Praise of Hatred” (Madih al-karahiya), is about how the lives of one family are affected by the battle between the Syrian government and the Muslim Brotherhood. It was published in Damascus in 2006, then banned by the Syrian government, and later republished in Beirut. “Knives in this City’s Kitchen,” published in Cairo in 2013, is about the “price that Syrians have paid under the rule of the Baath party” as headed by President Bashaar Al-Assad. It won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014. His fifth and latest novel, “Death is Hard Work,” was published January 2016. He is also the screenwriter for some of Syria’s best known and loved television series.
Please share your life story.
I am Khalid Khalifa, Syrian novelist. I have written 5 novels.
I was born in the north of Aleppo to a big family. I have 8 brothers and 4 sisters. Because we were such a big family I was free to try many things. I lived around Aleppo for my whole childhood. In the winter we lived in the city but in the summer we went to the village. All my books are about Aleppo. I graduated from the schools of Aleppo. I had a good relationship with teachers in school. I was a good student. When I was 11 I started reading books. My big brother loved books, he would bring them to the house, and the whole family would read. I started writing when I was young, and I decided early that it was what I wanted to do. In the beginning it was hard; my family couldn’t understand how it would be good for me, because the thought I would be financially strained or that writing could put me in conflict with the regime. But after I was writing for TV, my family was very proud of me. Writing is the only work I have done. 30 years, everyday 6 hours of writing, enjoying it. I still have the same passion. There isn’t much specific, but it was a good childhood. We were never poor.
How did you come to be a writer?
I have many stories I want to tell the world about it. But until now I don’t have an answer for this question. But now I know I don’t have another work that I enjoy.
What was the first thing you wrote?
When I was in secondary school I wrote some poetry. But after university I switched to novel writing. I wrote my first novel, but it wasn’t very good. Afterwards I wrote halis al khadiyya in 1989. I wanted to find my voice in writing. Writing changed my life. It changed everything. I look at everything as a writer.
How does place shape your writing?
I spent all my life in Syria. It is my favorite place. I can’t explain why. It’s my home. After this revolution, the bloodshed, it’s my home even more. I find my happiness there. My friends said to stay out of Syria but I couldn’t. There everything has meaning for me. I know the place.
Any place has its secrets. You must know its secrets if you want to write about it. If you don’t know the secrets of the place, you should leave. Writing is not just about stories, it’s about everything in the places. The perfume, the secret stories. I know these secrets (in Syria) because it’s my home.
What would you say the relationship of literature to revolution is?
I think for writing you must start from the whole. The revolution is maybe a boiling point. It’s dangerous to only focus on ideology stories. It is very bad for writing. Writers capture the last fact, what happened. I think Syrian writers will write about this revolution for thousands of years. It won’t have really finished, because there was so much blood.
What are your hopes for the revolution?
I hope we will win. If we lose, if the revolution steps down, Syria will be lost. I hope for peace for my people, but after 5 years of war, the regime must be gone.
What is your advice to writers?
I feel it’s important for writers to stick to a schedule, for a long time, every day. Writing is is a very hard job. When you start, you will feel it is very difficult, but after a while you will start enjoying it. I have spent all my time, decades, working at the desk, every day. Like any worker in a factory, I get up and work 6 hours minimum. I think is the advice from all writers. It’s especially true for novelists, though maybe it’s different for poets or short story writers.
Know your place, your home. Be honest at all times.
What is next for you?
I have one target. I want write a good book. After all these years I still feel that I don’t know anything about writing. I feel I should learn more about writing. The new book will be pretty large, a new novel about Aleppo and Syria, possibly starting in 1981 and finishing in 2015, 4 generations of a family. I’ll write about Aleppo and surrounding country, and other places. Up till now I worked here in the Harvard program, and I finished maybe half of the draft. After the second draft. I hope I will finish this novel.
