Book of My Life: George Abraham in conversation with Ellen Deckwitz

About Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury.

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Information

Date and time Saturday 25 January 2025 20:30 tot 20:50 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
Price All up to 30 years 15,-
Regular 35,-
Ooievaarspas 15,-
DenHaagPas 32,50.

Writers told us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Ellen Deckwitz.

George Abraham spoke about Gate of the Sun (2000), one of the best-known books by Lebanese writer, advocate of the Palestinian cause and university lecturer Elias Khoury, who died in 2024. In an emergency hospital of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, fate has brought two men together. Joenis, a freedom fighter who made his mark in the 1948 war, lies in a coma. His protégé Khaliel, a 40-year-old Palestinian nurse who was born in the camp and never saw his homeland, refuses to accept that his hero is doomed.

Line-up

George Abraham

(USA) is a Palestinian American poet, performance artist, and writer. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America (Haymarket Books, 2026) and Birthright (2020) which won the Arab American Book Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. They edit for Mizna, a Southwest Asian and North African diasporic literary journal, and are co-editor of HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket Books, 2025). Their current projects also include Eve, a performance project with Fargo Tbakhi re-imagining Milton's Paradise Lost through the lens of Palestinian resistance. They currently teach in Amherst College's English department as a Writer-in-Residence.
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Ellen Deckwitz

(The Netherlands, 1982) is a poet, columnist, critic and presenter at literary events, including Writers Unlimited. For De steen vreest mij (2011), she was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for the best poetry debut. Her collection Hogere natuurkunde (2019) is part travelogue, part myth and part testimony, and the outcome of conversations Deckwitz engaged in with individuals whose roots also trace back to the former Dutch East Indies. In 2022, Eerste hulp bij poëzie was published, an omnibus containing her collections Olijven moet je leren lezen (2020) and Dit gaat niet over grasmaaien (2021). Deckwitz writes columns for national daily newspaper NRC. In her NPO Luister podcast Poëzie vandaag, she presents a Dutch or translated poem every workday morning. She is one of three critics of podcast Boeken FM. Since Autumn 2025, she has been one of the presenters of Nooit meer Slapen, the VPRO's night-time cultural radio programme.

Instagram: @la_deck
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