List Muse's Top 100 Novels of All Time, #68 American Association of Publishers Best Book of the Year New York Times Notable Book of the Year One of Kansas City Star's 100 Noteworthy Books of the Year Boldtype Notable Book of the Year Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year For Khoury, those who live their lives enshrouded in death and political instability deserve a voice, and like few before him, he takes up their cause with a fearlessness that we can only marvel at, hoping that maybe in the near future, books like Khoury's won't have to be written.
– Keenan McCracken, Music and Literature Because the world is the way it is, because whole groups of people can be maligned, neglected, ignored, for too many years, we need the voice of Elias Khoury–detailed, exquisite, humane–more than ever. Read him. Without fail, read him.
–Naomi Shihab Nye Elias Khoury . . . is an artist giving voice to rooted exiles and trapped refugees, to dissolving boundaries and changing identities, to radical demands and new languages. From this perspective Khoury's work bids Mahfouz an inevitable and yet profoundly respectful farewell.
–Edward Said
There has been powerful fiction about Palestinians and by Palestinians, but few have held to the light the myths, tales and rumors of both Israel and the Arabs with such discerning compassion. In Humphrey Davies' sparely poetic translation, Gate of the Sunis an imposingly rich and realistic novel, a genuine masterwork.
–New York Times Book Review In Gate of the Sun a character dreams of writing a 'book without a beginning or end...an epic of the Palestinian people, ' based on the stories of every village, and starting from the 'great expulsion of 1948.' Elias Khoury's monumental novel is in a sense that groundbreaking book.
–The Guardian (UK)
