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Colette Khoury, Much information about the great Colette Khoury.
The Arab book has been an illuminating banner in Arab history throughout the ages.
Cagnua is a very prominent member of the Arab emergence on the world stage
That with their immortal writings in the memory of generations
Among them is the great writer Colette Khoury:
Colette Khoury (1937).
Syrian poet, writer, and novelist, grandfather of former Syrian Prime Minister Fares El-Khoury during the independence era.
Besides her mother tongue, Colette El-Khoury writes in French and English.
She was working as a lecturer at Damascus University, Faculty of Arts.
She is one of the biggest Syrian and Arab women writers.
Colette Khoury was born in 1937 in a house in Damascus, in Bab Touma.
Her father is Suhail Faris Al-Khoury.
Her mother is Layla Habib as a case.
It is a patriotic family renowned in the fields of politics, literature, and journalism.
Colette Khoury has two names:
- The first Colette, chosen by her father at her birth, is named after the French writer Colette, who was living her glory as a writer.
The father, Suhail, kept track of what she wrote and what was written about her.
- The second: It is Khawla, and it was called her by grandfather Faris al-Khoury.
He arranged his son’s desire, Suhail, rather than his refusal to choose the name, Colette, because of his unbounded belief in Arabism.
Colette Khoury life and books
About Colette Khoury
Khoury began writing in both Arabic and French from her childhood.
Then it began publishing, and its literary beginnings were nothing but sentiments embodied in pieces published in Arabic and small poems in French.
She published at a young age a collection of poems in French entitled “Twenty Years”.
Khoury expressed her anger at the social restrictions and her severe denial of them.
She also described her attempts and mistakes in love.
Khoury devoted her work to instilling in the feminine psyche and defending a woman’s right to love and life in its entirety.
Colette Khoury once said, “Since I always felt the need to express what happened inside me.
The need to protest, the need to shout.
Since I didn’t want to scream in my throat, I screamed with my fingers and became a writer. ”
Colette Khoury toured poetry, novel, short story, essay, theater, and historical studies.
She has more than thirty books on literature and history.
She also worked intermittently as a journalist.
The beginnings of Colette Khoury
Colette Khoury was born in 1937 in an old neighborhood of the capital, Damascus, in Syria.
Her family has always been a precious political and cultural heritage of Syria.
Her grandfather was Faris Khoury, the national politician, and thinker.
Colette is her first name that her father chose because of his love and great admiration for the French writer Colette.
She was living her glory as a writer at the time.
As for Khawla, it is the name that was chosen for her by grandfather Fares Khoury, after the daughter of Azwar.
Desiring the presence of a new knight from his family, the knight of literature was Colette Khoury.
She received her early education at the Besançon Nunnery School.
She completed her high school education at the French Arab Institute in Damascus.
After that, she studied law at the Jesuit University in Beirut and then pursued her higher education at Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
Then she moved to Damascus University to finally obtain a BA in French Language and Literature.
Colette Khoury Achievements
In 1957, when she was twenty years old.
She published her first book, “Twenty Years”.
It was a twenty poem that Colette wrote between the ages of sixteen and twenty.
The last poem in this book is entitled “Twenty Years.”
When she presented the book to her father, Suhail, he looked at it and smiled half-smile and said to her:
I imagine if this book had been in Arabic, the matter would have been more important.
Colette says
I was upset that day, but I felt my father was right, and I decided that my second book would be in Arabic.
It was the novel Days With Him in 1959
This novel was considered a living embodiment of what Khoury lived with the great poet Nizar Qabbani.
This novel shocked the Arab world at the time.
It was the first time that a woman had written so boldly and realistically about love.
On that topic, which was one of the taboos of the conservative Syrian society.
In her novel, Colette creates a strong, independent woman whose love cannot make her weak or humiliated.
She strongly expressed her thoughts and beliefs through this character.
She was able to shout and say forcefully in this novel:
“No! I wasn’t born just to learn to cook and then get married, have children, and die!
If this is the rule in my country, I would be an exception
I don’t want to marry! ”
In 1960 Colette published another book in French, entitled: “Rasa” which is also twenty poems in a collection.
In 1961, she returned to the Arab world through the novel “One Night”
It was one of the most controversial stories due to the element of fornication in it.
Khoury describes the suffering of a married woman when her marriage turns into a purely commercial partnership that lacks all forms of affection and mercy.
The heroine of her story “Rasha” was nothing but falling into a void
This humiliating void made her flounder between analysts and taboos in search of what warms her up.
Colette Khoury has always been a clear and mature patriotic and political ideology.
She published several patriotic stories that affected Damascus and left a great impression on Syrians.
The most famous of them (Damascus is my big house, a call to Quneitra and others)
Between 1989 and 1997
The memories of her grandfather, the political thinker Faris Khoury, were published in two books entitled ” Papers of Fares Khoury”
In 1990, she was elected to the People’s Assembly for two consecutive terms.
She published her views and ideas in Al-Baath and Tishreen newspapers, and other newspapers and magazines.
I wrote an angle in the magazine Al-Mustaqbal, which was published in Paris.
In 2006, President Bashar al-Assad chose her as his literary advisor.
In 2009, she was the first ambassador of Syria to Lebanon.
Colette Khoury’s personal life
At the age of eighteen, she married the Spanish Count Rodrico Deusias
The marriage took place in France
Her daughter Nara was a product of this marriage
Of this marriage, Colette said, “My marriage to the Count wasn’t just out of love
But also because I was always looking for someone who could be like my father, handsome and present. “
Shortly after this marriage ended
The entire Arab world was buzzing with her love story with the great Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani
Khoury, in turn, did not deny these mutual feelings by more than one meeting or dialogue that they conducted after the death of the poet Nizar Qabbani.
As for Colette Khoury’s religion, beliefs, and indigenous sect
She was born into an Orthodox Christian family.
Quick facts about Colette Khoury
- At the beginning of her literary career, she used to publish her poetic and literary pieces under the name “Colette Suhail”.
- The first piece of her published in French was in a magazine called “Girl Today”
Colette commented on this first event saying:
“It seemed to me that with this little piece I climbed the ladder of glory
I thought I ran on the path I chose
But I did not know that day that the road is long and longer than my life
I did not know that no matter how deep I went into this maze
No matter how far I traveled in this colorful artistic world, I will always feel like I am at the beginning of the road. “
- When Khoury was asked about her first book, “Twenty Years”
She said: “There is a French proverb that says: To write poetry when you are twenty, this is evidence that you are twenty.”
As for writing poetry when you were forty, this is evidence that you are a poet, I was twenty, so I consider that my books are just the emotions of a little girl written in melodies
And I think this book has more emotional than literary value
It is literary exercises or rudimentary strings of literature. “
- Colette was known to be a fan of Arabic despite her mastery of French
I have transmitted a number of poems to our great poets into French
Such as (Suleiman Al-Issa, Nizar Qabbani, Ali Al-Jundi, Adonis, etc. …)
I also translated stories from French into Arabic by the well-known French writer, “Antoine Doucin Express”, such as the story of “The Little Prince” and “Gigi”
And small scattered stories.
- Colette worked as a lecturer in the French Language Department at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Damascus
Colette contracted for many years as a media and linguistic consultant to General Mustafa Tlass.
He was former Minister of Defense.
Colette Khoury most famous sayings
- I want a man who loves me knowing that many are more beautiful and smarter than me.
I want a man who loves me because my soul blended with his soul
Because my thoughts matched his thoughts.
I don’t want, I don’t want a man who loves me because after putting me on the scale he discovered that I am better than others.
- “Being alone with myself is something I’m used to.
But in my life I could not bear being alone when I was with another human being.
- I don’t like screaming in my throat
So I screamed with my fingers and became a writer.
- Educated girls are very rare
The educated girl is unbearable
Because its knowledge instead of erasing its silliness
Makes her more arrogant.
- Night always amplifies everything
And long for the desperate.
- What is the ugliest of a society that does not like candor
That society that affects prostitution in secret on the pure smile in public.
- How painful memories are when one sees them in love.
- I forget what I want to forget, and I never forget what matters to me.
- My story with you is the best poem I write
But it is a poem not to be written
Human shots only overflow with the eye.
- You know that a person has no absolute value
Its value is a relative matter determined by its circumstances
For example, we love a man through his circumstances
As it does not exist outside those circumstances
Or if you wish, if we strip him of his conditions, he will become another man. ”
- I know what will happen
Will hurt
She will cry
Will revolt
You will admonish him, quarrel with him, curse him
Their relationship will continue.
- Sometimes people think that they fully understand a certain topic
He never thinks about it
And when suddenly asked a question about this topic
He finds himself unable to answer
And it turns out that he didn’t think once about this question
And he is ignorant of the answer.
- I am the sweetheart of poetry.
And the daughter of warmth and life.
- Women are always the woman anytime and anywhere
She is the creature that loves emotions
Sex is understood through emotions
And it remains despite development, progress, and equality
Despite the world looking for emotions.
Here we arrive at the end of our nice article.
It was some information about the writer Colette Khoury.
