An interview by Riccardo Stagliano for Venerdi, Supplement to La Repubblica, May 13th, 2011: “The Syrian culture, in its daily practices, does not allow intransigence. The history of Syria bears witness to a big openness to the Other. If the Syrians had accepted extremism, the Muslim Brotherhood would have had an easy game to win in the eighties. I believe that the Syrian society will make the roots of its civilization prevail again and for the first time in five centuries, the Syrians will be able to start building a democracy that represents them, based on tolerance and on the use of free elections.”

The relation between popular movements in the Arab world is clear: our regimes have in common despotism and corruption, although some claim to be concerned primarily with the defense of national interests and others, by economic growth. Popular demands are also the same: freedom, from which our peoples have long been deprived, and dignity after so many humiliations and so many violations of basic human rights. The powers in place borrow each other’s rhetoric and display a shocking ignorance of what is happening deep within their countries. The Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs giggled when a reporter asked him a question about the possibility of a revolution in Egypt as in Tunisia. And the Syrian president responded in the same manner to a question about the impact of the Egyptian revolution in Syria…

Elogio Dell Odio is the Italian title of Khaled Khalifa’s In Praise of Hatred, published by Bompiani this May 2011.

In 2008, Khaled Khalifa’s book was shortlisted in Abu Dhabi’s international prize for Arabic fiction (or Arab Booker prize), and Khalifa had given the interview below to Michele Farina, Corrier della sera.

Interview of Khaled Khalifa by Peter Puchot, for Mediapart:

“I defend the right of my people for democracy, I closely watch the process of change of which I can actually testify. For the first time in 40 years, the Syrian society begins to break the wall of fear. It’s as if it saw itself for the first time: (it sees) fear of the future and at the same time, confidence to lead its way into it. Since the departure of Mubarak, I’ve been waiting for the Syrian revolt, but I could not imagine what form it would take, nor where it would be triggered.”

Starting tomorrow, Thursday May 13, 2011, Khaled Khalifa is on a tour in Europe for the launch of his book ‘In praise of hatred’, coming out in three languages at the same time.

Between 2008 and 2009, the book’s rights had been sold in six languages. Two years later, the book is finally out in three of them: French (Sindbad, Actes Sud), Italian (Bompiani) and Dutch (De Geus), while we still eagerly wait for the English (Transworld, Random House), Spanish (Lumen, Random House) and Norwegian (Minuskel) versions to come out.

Wandering what the reception the press and the readers will reserve to this dense and intense story, we can only be struck by the coincidence of the book’s publication in the West and the current events in Syria.
In praise of hatred is the story of the Syrian regime’s repression of the Muslim brotherhood in 1982, told through the eyes of a religious and activist young woman. The protests started last March are the first time the Syrian people dare defy the regime so massively in thirty years.

Norwegian publishing house Minuskel recently acquired the rights to Khaled Khalifa’s In praise of hatred.