Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Basem al-Khandakji, a Palestinian writer and prisoner, born in 1983. He studied at An-Najah National University in the Department of Journalism and Media. He was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces on November 2, 2004, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He has several novels and poetry collections that he wrote from inside the prisons of the occupation, and his latest novel, “The Eclipse of Badr al-Din,” published in December 2018. Some of his works have been translated into French.
his personal life
He was born in the name of Muhammad Salih Adib al-Khandakji on December 22, 1983 and studied in the schools of Nablus Governorate. After that, he joined An-Najah National University to study in the Department of Journalism and Media. Experienced the madness and cruelty of the Israeli occupation during the first intifada. These events affected his political orientation, and he joined the ranks of the former Communist Palestinian People's Party, when he was 15 years old. He and a group of his companions were active in the school. Bassem was arrested on November 2, 2004, when he was in his last year of university, by the occupation forces after the Carmel market operation, which led to the killing of 3 Israelis and wounding more than 50 Israelis, although Bassem did not engage in any military activity during the operation. He was sentenced on 7 June 2005 to three life terms and in the testimony of the International Red Cross, he is sentenced to life. In addition to accusing him of participating in the "Carmel Market Operation", the Israeli authorities demanded that the Israeli authorities compensate the families of those killed in the operation in the amount of $11.6 million. The prisoner Bassem Al-Youm is thirty-five years old. He spent 15 years in the occupation prisons, and he is currently in Hidrem Prison.
His career
Bassem started his writing journey inside prison by writing (Drafts of a Home Lover), which is about 10 articles that tell about the Palestinian concern (and thus humanity is dying), which is about the experience of the Palestinian prisoner inside prisons and his daily concern. Also from his writing a book of poetry entitled (Knock on the Walls of the Place) and (The Shabq of Roses is the Wreath of Nothingness), as well as a study on Palestinian women and the book (I am the human, a call from iron alienation) and he wrote novels: “Mask Enough: Biography of the Lady of Free Shadows” and “The Narcissus of Solitude.” » Which he launched at the First Palestine Forum for Arabic Fiction in 2017 in Ramallah under the auspices of Minister of Culture Ihab Bseiso. Khandakji's mother and brother signed the novel to attend instead of the prisoner Basem.
His latest novel, "The Eclipse of Badr al-Din", published in December 2018, is a historical novel that talks about the Sufi hero Badr al-Din on the journey of his rebellion, making him a scholar and a pole of Sufism in his time. Thus more than one question: What is the benefit of knowledge without dignity? Refusing to grovel to authority and play the parrot.
Bassem was able to transform his prison into a cultural operations room from which he manages all his intellectual and literary projects by publishing his books, preparing signing ceremonies for them, and supervising the “Bassem Khandakji Prisoner’s Fund to Support Prisoners’ Literature”, which he founded, to support and preserve the creativity of prisoners inside prisons, and he has adopted it. His brother, through the “Popular Publishers Library” in Nablus.
Bassem Khandakji's experience in prison literature is a different and striking experience. He has been in prison since November 02, 2004 and does not write about his experience in it, which is different from many prisoners who wrote about the world of prison and their experience in it, and their works are almost limited to their experience and its surroundings, such as Ali Al-Khalili, who was one of the first to write about prison literature. In the seventies of the last century and his book “The Keys Revolve in Locks,” as well as Faisal Hourani and his book “The Trapped,” while we find Bassem a modernist who has gone out of the ordinary in the novel of prison literature. The words and writings of our prisoners are eternal.
His literary works
collections of poetry
Ritual Diwan first time in 2009
Diwan of breaths a night poem in 2013
Novels
The Novel Misk Enough: The Biography of the Lady of Free Shadows was published in 2014 by the Arab House for Science Publishers
Narges Al-Azla was published in 2017, by the People's Library, Nablus
The Eclipse of Badr al-Din was published in 2018, by Dar al-Adab
Studies and articles
1. The literature of the captive movement, Bassem Khandakji as a model, written by Hassan Abadi. Intervention at the opening of the first book fair in Nablus on Sunday 03/11/2019
2. Self-questioning and confronting it in the novel “The Narcissus of Solitude” by Bassem Khandakji by Firas Hajj Muhammad on Diwan Al-Arab website
source
Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
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