Yahya Yakhlif

Who is Yahya Yakhlif?

Yahya Yakhlif is a Palestinian writer and a novelist. He was born in Samakh, a Palestinian village that was abandoned during the Naqba in 1948, four years after Yakhlif's birth. Consequently, Yakhlif and his family became displaced refugees.

As an author, Yakhlif has published several novels and short story collections. His novel about the last days of Samakh, A Lake Beyond the Wind, was translated into English by Christopher Tingley and May Jayyusi and published by Interlink Books in 1998 in its Emerging Voices series. Ma' Al Sama, a more recent novel, also explores the condition of Palestinian exilehood. Ma' Al Sama was nominated for the 2009 Arabic Booker Prize.