The Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi invites you to a talk followed by a discussion with IPAF shortlisted author Walid Shurafa. Shurafa will be discussing his novel, Heir of the Gravestones with Alsaad Almenhaly, editor-in-chief of National Geographic Arabic.

Note: This event will be in Arabic.

Heir of the Gravestones is a novel about war and exile. It tells the story of Al-Wahid, a palestinian who remembers his childhood during the June 1967 war, and how his father and grandfather were forcibly evicted from their village ‘Ain Hawd’, which the Israelis turned into an artists’ village and renamed ‘Ain Hood’. Suleiman, the grandfather, builds a new house in Nablus which resembles the old one. When he dies, Al-Wahid returns from his university studies abroad and tries to visit the house in the village. However, the artist living there refuses him entry. He sits in a nearby cafe, and then discovers the old sign belonging to his grandfather’s house in the toilet. When he removes it, he gets into a fight with the police and accidentally kills one of them…

Author Bio

Walid Shurafa is a Palestinian writer, born in Nablus, Palestine, in 1973. He teaches Media and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University in Palestine and wrote his doctoral thesis on the discourse of Edward Said. He published his first play, entitled The People’s Court, in 1991, while still at secondary school. He has two published novels: Coming from the Resurrection (2013) and Heir of the Gravestones (2017). His interests lie in visual culture and orientalism.

This talk is presented in connection with Permanent Temporariness: Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, on view at the NYUAD Art Gallery through June 9, 2018.