Researcher and Novelist Taysir Ahmad Khalaf

Biography and career

Taysir Ahmad Khalaf is a Syrian-Palestinian novelist, critic, and researcher, born in Quneitra in 1967. He has written dozens of books spanning fiction, historical research, and documentation. His novel The Andalusian Christ was published in 2024.

• Education: He studied journalism and graduated from the University of Damascus in 1993.
• Early years: He began writing fiction and literature and joined the Arab Writers Union.
• Research interests: His work explores the history of the Levant and the Arab world, with particular attention to Palestine, the occupied Syrian Golan, travel writing, and early Arab theatre.

Awards and nominations

• His novel The Philosophers' Massacre was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017.
• His novel The Andalusian Christ was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2025 and went on to reach the shortlist.

Novels and short stories

• Other Cats — short story collection (1993).
• Notebooks of the Sloping Shoulder (1996).
• The Old Woman of the Lake (2004).
• Moviola (2013).
• The Philosophers' Massacre (2016).
• Darwin's Birds (2018).
• King of Thieves: The Scrolls of the Syrian Eunus (2022).
• The Andalusian Christ (2024).
• Manido: An Icy Love Story (2026), published by Almutawassit.

Historical research, studies, and edited texts

• The Golan in Arab-Islamic Geographical Heritage (2004).
• The Golan in Arabic Historical Sources: Annals and Biographies (2005).
• Exploring the Golan: Adventurers, Spies, and Clerics, 1805–1880 (2006).
• Ottoman Documents on the Golan (2006).
• Christ in the Golan: History and Archaeology (2006).
• Rujm al-Hiri and the Civilization of the Mysterious Circles (2007).
• Encyclopedia of Arab and Muslim Journeys to Palestine, eight volumes (2009).
• The Journeys of Patriarch Dionysius of Tell-Mahre during the Reigns of Caliphs al-Ma'mun and al-Mu'tasim; winner of the 2013–2014 Ibn Battuta Prize for Manuscript Editing.
• The Syriac Narrative of the Islamic Conquests (2014).
• From Damascus to Chicago: Abu Khalil Qabbani's Journey to America in 1893 (2018).
• The Origins of Theatre in the Levant: From Legal Uncertainty to Fatwas of Prohibition, 1847–1917 (2018).
• The Story of Abu Khalil Qabbani's Theatre in Damascus, 1873–1883 (2019).
• The Early Women's Movement in Ottoman Syria: The Experience of Writer Hana Kaspani Korani (2019).
• Arab Queens before Islam (2021).
• From Acre to Texas: The Memoirs of Constantine Asaad Siqli (1861–1925) (2023).