{"id":41592,"date":"2022-05-13T14:50:07","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T12:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/literaturfestivalberlin.de\/authors\/venus-khoury-ghata\/"},"modified":"2022-05-13T20:14:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T18:14:53","slug":"venus-khoury-ghata","status":"publish","type":"authors","link":"https:\/\/literaturfestival.com\/en\/authors\/venus-khoury-ghata\/","title":{"rendered":"V\u00e9nus Khoury-Ghata"},"content":{"rendered":"

V\u00e9nus Khoury-Ghata<\/strong> was born in Bcharr\u00e9 in northern Lebanon in 1937. She grew up with three siblings in a Christian quarter of Beirut.\u00a0 Her mother tongue is Arabic, whereas her father preferred the French culture and language.\u00a0 Thus, her first attempts at writing were \u00bbin French from left to right on the page and in Arabic from right to left\u00ab, with the text meeting in the middle, as she puts it, \u00bbin a forbidden, incestuous marriage\u00ab.\u00a0 Although she eventually chose the French language, Arabic rhythms and tropes subsist in Khoury-Ghata\u2019s work. They experience some kind of homecoming through translation.\u00a0\u00bbMy poems, which I write in French, return to their mother tongue whenever they are translated into Arabic.\u00a0 They sound as if they were orginally written in Arabic.\u00ab\u00a0Shortly after the publication of her first poem Khoury-Ghata was elected \u00bbMiss Lebanon\u00ab and soon afterwards married a respected Muslim, with whom she has three children.\u00a0 Over the years she devoted more and more time to writing. Before the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon, she followed her second husband, a Frenchman, to Paris.<\/p>\n

To date Khoury-Ghata has published over twenty-five volumes of poetry and novels.\u00a0 Works by her translated into German include: \u00bbLes fianc\u00e9es du cap T\u00e9n\u00e8s\u00ab (1996; Engl: The Fianc\u00e9s of Cap T\u00e9n\u00e8s), \u00bbBayarmine\u00ab (1987), and \u00bbLa ma\u00eetresse du notable\u00ab (1991; Engl: The Mistress of the Dignitary), for which she received the German LiBeratur Prize.\u00a0 This novel tells the story of the resident of a house lying on the demarcation line between the Christian and Muslim quarters of a Lebanese city after the end of the civil war.\u00a0 A large conflict is sparked off after the main character breaks away from her restricting circumstances and crosses the border in order to be with the Muslim dignitary who is her lover.\u00a0 Subsequently, the abandoned household sinks ever more into desolation.\u00a0 Khoury-Ghata describes the experience of hopelessness and loss in a sometimes ironic or even cynical and almost ruthless sounding way, but always clearly. These themes also provide the central motifs for her poems: expressive and gloomy tableaux of a surreal estrangement evoking a multiplicity of interpretations.<\/p>\n

Khoury-Ghata has received numerous prizes, among them the Prix Mallarm\u00e9 for \u00bbMonologue du mort\u00ab (1986; Engl: Monologue of the Dead), the Prix des Gens des Lettres for \u00bbFables pour un peuple d\u2019argile\u00ab (1992; Engl: Fables for a People of Clay), and the Prix Baie des Anges for \u00bbLe Moine, l\u2019Ottoman et la femme du grand argentier\u00ab (2003; Engl: The Monk, the Ottoman and the Finance Minister’s Wife). In 2000 she was named a Chevalier de la L\u00e9gion d\u2019Honneur.\u00a0 She serves on the jury of various literary prize committees and also works for radio and newspapers.\u00a0 Khoury-Ghata lives in Paris.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 international literature festival berlin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15395,"template":"","jct-role":[1080],"jct-origin":[493],"jct-ilb-years":[599],"class_list":["post-41592","authors","type-authors","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","jct-role-author","jct-origin-lebanon","jct-ilb-years-2005-en"],"yoast_head":"\nV\u00e9nus Khoury-Ghata – international literature festival berlin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/literaturfestival.com\/en\/authors\/venus-khoury-ghata\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"V\u00e9nus Khoury-Ghata – international literature festival berlin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"V\u00e9nus Khoury-Ghata was born in Bcharr\u00e9 in northern Lebanon in 1937. 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