A 9/11 Gallery

April 25 (Fri), 8 pm—Elias Khoury Presents His Novel Yalo with Special Musical Guest Tony Khalife in a Lebanese Salon

Join diverse Lebanese artists including novelist Elias Khoury, author Saree Makdisi, musician-composer Tony Khalife and artist Huguette Caland for a unique evening including a dinner of Middle Eastern dishes, readings, discussion and live performance. Khoury, visiting from Beirut/New York, will present his latest novel, Yalo, and will be introduced by Saree Makdisi. With Yalo, Khoury returns to Beirut in the 1980s with a book that is a series of jagged narratives shifting in time, location and point of view.

In Khoury’s new novel, the reader is propelled into a fantastic universe of skewed reality and violent abandon. We follow the path of a young man, Yalo, who is growing up like a stray dog on the streets of Beirut during the long years of the Lebanese civil war. Living with his mother who “lost her face in the mirror,” he falls in with a dangerous gang whose violent escapades he treats as a game. The game becomes a frightening reality, however, when Yalo is accused of rape and imprisoned. He is forced to confess to crimes of which he has no recollection. As he writes and rewrites his confession, he begins to grasp his family’s past, recalling all that his psyche has buried, and the true Yalo begins to emerge.

Elias Khoury is currently the Global Distinguished Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Born in Beirut in 1948, he is the author of eleven novels, four volumes of literary criticism, and three plays. Since 1975, with the publication of his first novel, he has been in the Beirut vanguard of new Arabic literature, which was seeking to create new dimensions in the movement of modernism.

Khoury is the editor in chief of the cultural supplement of Beirut’s daily newspaper, An-Nahar. In 1998, he was awarded the Palestine Prize for Gate of the Sun, and in 2000, the novel was named Le Monde Diplomatique’s Book of the Year. Elias Khoury is a public intellectual and a cultural activist who plays a major role in contemporary Arabic culture and in the defense of the liberty of expression and democracy. Khoury's latest novel to be translated into English is Yalo.

Listen to an interview with Elias Khoury.

A native of Lebanon, Tony Khalife is a musician, vocalist and composer who now resides in Ojai. In his latest album, Transcendence, he raises the bar, plunging deeper into the darkness and emerging with brilliant melodies of peace, making a giant step in his mission of raising the world's vibration through music. All the threads of his life came together-from the ravaged childhood in war-torn Lebanon to the search for spiritual enlightenment-in a lyrical flow that blends all that he has experienced and learned in his long journey. Visit his site.

Read a review of Yalo.

Free to the public, donations requested. Private location in Venice. RSVPs required. 310.657.5511.
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Levantine Center's Board of Directors is continually seeking to work with new volunteers who may be invited to join the board. We welcomes inquiries—we are actively searching for more people with our passion and conviction! Our core group of volunteers consists of diverse members of the community who are of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean heritage or who have a strong professional or artistic interest in furthering our mission. Our volunteers work on literary, film, fine art, music and educational programming.

Our Advisory Board is also in formation. Advisory board members are known professionally in their own communities and offer valuable counsel and services to the organization; they are eligible to attend the organization's annual retreat and receive other benefits.

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