For the second time, a novel by Khaled Khalifa is on the shortlist of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), also known as the Arab Man Booker. “There are no knives” is co-published by Dar El Ain, Egypt, and Dar Al Adab, Lebanon. In 2008, Khalifa’s “In praise of hatred” was also shortlisted for the IPAF.

This prize, awarded since 1996 is a major award for contemporary Arabic literature.

The award is presented annually on December 11, the birthday of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, by the President of the American University in Cairo in the presence of the Minister of Culture and many other prominent leaders of Egypt’s cultural life.

Exceptionally, and for the first time, the winner of the prize was unable to receive the award in person. Khaled Khalifa was not given permission to leave Syria by the authorities.

Khaled always entered first and greeted the customers sitting at tables near the door. He bent down, kissed the men, flirted with the women, and strutted to where Nabil, Qasabji’s owner, had cleaned a spot for us. He ordered either a glass of arak or the local Damascene beer, Barada, pulled a cigarette from his pack, lit it, and added to the purplish haze of smoke.

“Syria has no choice but hope.”

Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa continues in his new novel No Knives in this City’s Kitchens what he begun in his previous masterpiece, In Praise of Hatred (2006) — excavating contemporary Syrian society’s memory.

He starts from what one family has gone through in Aleppo, which he describes as the punished city, while In Praise of Hatred focused on the distortions made by death squads or the “Party Action Squads” in the psyches of its members during the events in Hama in the 1980s. The novel explores the price paid by Syrians for living parallel to the life of the ruling party for near half a century.

The 260 pages novel details life under the Asad regime, in the period spanning from the early 60’s, to 2005.