Bassem Khandaqji spent 21 years in Israeli prisons, winning the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for "A Mask the Colour of the Sky" while still behind bars. Now in exile, the Palestinian novelist speaks to Tarwida Podcast about writing secretly at 4am, smuggling manuscripts out of detention, and how imagination helped him survive and resist. He also introduces Adab al-Ishtibak — Literature of Engagement — and previews his next novel about late fellow prisoner Walid Daqqa.
Bassem Khandaqji is a Palestinian novelist from Nablus who spent more than 2 decades in Israeli prison, sentenced to three life terms. In 2024, while still behind bars, he won the international book prize for Arabic fiction (Arabic Booker Prize) for his novel Mask of the Sky (قناع بلون السماء). Released in October 2024 in a prisoner exchange deal, he now lives in exile in Cairo.
In this episode of Tarwida, Bassem Khandaqji speaks about writing novels under occupation, while writing was forbidden — drafting by hand at 4am, making three copies of every manuscript, and smuggling completed works out of detention.
The conversation covers the cultural and academic life inside Israeli prisons, its destruction after October 7 — what Khandaqji calls cultural genocide. He discusses his novels in depth, including how he spent a year immersed in Hebrew-language media to write his Israeli protagonist — thinking in Hebrew, writing in Arabic. He introduces Adab al-Ishtibak — Literature of Engagement — a framework for anti-colonial literature that dismantles Zionist ideology. He reflects on Yaffa, Jerusalem, Palestinian exile, and Mahmoud Darwish, and discusses his next novel about late fellow prisoner Walid Daqqa.
باسم خندقجي روائي فلسطيني من نابلس، قضى أكثر من عقدين في السجون الإسرائيلية بحكم بثلاثة مؤبدات. في 2024، فاز وهو خلف القضبان بالجائزة العالمية للرواية العربية (البوكر العربي) عن روايته "قناع بلون السماء"، وأُفرج عنه في أكتوبر 2024 ضمن صفقة تبادل، ويعيش اليوم في المنفى بالقاهرة.
في هذه الحلقة من ترويدة، يتحدث خندقجي عن الكتابة تحت الاحتلال — يكتب بخط يده في الرابعة فجراً، ينسخ كل مخطوطة ثلاث مرات، ويهرّبها خارج الاحتجاز. يتناول الحياة الثقافية داخل السجون الإسرائيلية وما لحق بها من دمار بعد ال 7 من أكتوبر، وعاماً أمضاه منغمساً في الإعلام العبري لكتابة شخصيته الإسرائيلية، ومفهوم "أدب الاشتباك"، وروايته القادمة عن الأسير الشهيد وليد دقة.
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This episode is hosted and produced by Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun.
This conversation was recorded in person on February 8, 2026, in Cairo. You can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture, and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists, including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, and more, about their very own Palestine. In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
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[00:00:00] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: I remember one of the officers telling me, "You're causing quite a stir out there. The whole world is talking about you. What's going on with you? How do you even manage to write? How do you take your books out of prison?" That's when I realised how vital it is for a Palestinian to control his own narrative. You can't imagine how upset, pressured, and tense that Zionist officer was, threatening me, warning me: "We're going to deal with you." So what did I say to him? I said: "Had I known my words would bother you this much, I would have written a lot more." And I provoked him further — "I promise, I'll give you a free signed copy of the novel."
[00:00:40] HOST: Welcome to Tarwida Podcast. Today's episode is very special, not only because this is the first time I'm hosting a guest face to face, but because this is the first time I'm speaking with a guest who managed to achieve great success in the world of art and literature from behind prison walls. Bassem Khandaqji is a Palestinian writer and novelist who won the 2024 Booker Prize for his book "A Mask the Color of the Sky." Bassem spent 21 years in prison and was released last October as part of the prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and the occupation state. We recorded this episode on the 8th of February, 2026. Before we begin, we recommend that you turn on notifications and subscribe, and don't forget to follow us on social media.
[00:01:20] HOST: Welcome, Bassem Khandaqji.
[00:01:21] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Thank you.
[00:01:22] HOST: I feel very lucky to be with you today in Cairo. We want to talk about your works, of course, and your journey before, during and after prison. But before we dive into all of that, we'd love to know more about you before prison. Tell us a little about your upbringing, your childhood, about Nablus...
[00:01:42] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Thank you, first of all. I'm happy to be here with you — this warmth, this connection. It's wonderful to be with you on Tarwida Podcast. That's something I'm particularly proud of, especially knowing it's a group of Palestinian women who oversee it — that's a source of pride for all of us.
I am a son of Nablus city, known as Jabal Al-Nar — the Mountain of Fire. I was born and raised there. I come from a Palestinian family of fighters. My family works in publishing and books. I grew up in that environment, raised inside my family's private library, and perhaps that's where my abilities began to take shape, and where I began dreaming of one day becoming a writer or producing a body of writing.
Nablus, to me, is rooted in heritage and authenticity. It's where my national consciousness was formed. I also studied and learned there, and enrolled in its university — Al-Najah National University. My first steps in struggle and resistance began in that city during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. My arrest was in November 2004, on charges of participating in and planning several operations against the Zionist army and Zionist military targets. I was subsequently sentenced to three life terms — equivalent to 300 years in prison — of which I served 21 years.
[00:03:17] HOST: And when you were young, did you read specific authors? Did you have literary influences or inspirations?
[00:03:21] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Of course. I'll tell you something: everything we do in life starts in our childhood. A philosopher once said: the tragedy of man is perhaps that he was once a child. Everything begins after childhood.
I remember the first novel I ever read. I was 10 years old, in fifth grade, and it was a novel by the late great Syrian writer Hanna Mina, titled "The End of a Brave Man." I started reading it, and at the time they were also airing the TV series based on the novel. I used to tell my family what was going to happen in the show, getting ahead by reading the book and explaining the plot. There were a lot of difficult things in the novel and I used to ask my late father, may he rest in peace, "What does this word mean?" But after I finished reading the novel and saw the name of the publisher on the cover, knowing it was a significant work, I said: "When I grow up, I'll write a novel and publish with this publisher." That took me about 25 years.
[00:04:36] HOST: And I don't think you imagined as a child the circumstances that would eventually make you a writer.
[00:04:39] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: No. Before prison, my earliest attempts at writing were letters to our neighbour's daughter, or to a girl I liked when we were young, or during university. It began from there. I used to call it "scribbles" — the way we scribble and try to write and create. But the real experience was formed during my detention, for several reasons — mostly essential to survival. Writing during incarceration becomes an act of existence and of freedom.
I didn't plan to pursue novel writing from the beginning of my detention. It took me a while before I recognised that I had the ability to write a novel. I started with articles, prose pieces, and poetry, really. I have two poetry collections published in Beirut. And there was great support from my family during my start in poetry and prose. And then I transitioned to novels. I shifted to novels for several reasons. Most importantly because poetry could no longer carry the idea I wanted to convey. Also, I discovered I'm not a poet. After writing two poetry anthologies I thought: "This isn't working for me. Let me try something else." So I moved to the world of novels.
My first real experience in fiction was the novel "Misk Al-Kifayah," which I wrote about Al-Khayzaran, mother of Harun Al-Rashid. No one expected me to write in that field. I was reading a book inside detention about forgotten queens — a book by Fatima Mernissi — and Al-Khayzaran emerged from the text out of nowhere and slapped me in the face. A powerful woman capable of controlling the entire Abbasid court. Her story amazed me, and I decided to research her story.
We had large libraries in the prisons before the 7th of October. We had a wonderful cultural, literary, and academic life, which we brought about through our struggles against the jailer. That's where I began writing the novel, and the primary goal was for pleasure — to enjoy myself while writing a text, so I could deal with life in prison. Because through the text I could escape, I leave prison and travel to somewhere symbolically free. And that's how the story began to develop.
[00:07:06] HOST: I've read work by writers who wrote while imprisoned — most of it was Syrian prison literature — and most of what I read always revolved around what's happening inside the prison, as if the writer's aim from inside the prison was to document the situation to the outside world. But what's distinctive about your writing is that almost all of your novels take us to worlds very far from prison — places that are hard to reach even as a free person. Whether we're talking about within Palestine — we were just talking about how you may have visited Yafa only once in your life, yet your book is largely about Yafa. You also have books from ancient eras like the Abbasid period. Was it a conscious choice to step beyond the prison walls in your writing?
[00:07:54] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Absolutely. From the very beginning, I did not want to engage in prison literature, for many reasons. One is that prison literature had exhausted itself — exhausted its capacity to express and represent the prisoners' suffering. Also, prison literature is documentary and archival. It lacks the contemplative depth or the capacity to break through the walls and engage with broader world or Palestinian concerns.
I also felt that if I transformed the prison into a cultural launching pad to reach the outside world, that represented for me a form of cultural engagement with the jailer, and also a capacity to convey my message to the world — to move away from the prison and create a time that is entirely my own. That personal time is the time of the novel, when I wrote the historical fiction novel.
There's a paradox here. The easiest thing is for a person to write a historical novel — to go back to history, gather history books, and begin to imagine, because that reality has already gone and ended. So the task becomes almost archaeological: like excavating artefacts, brushing off centuries of dust, and cleaning them. And then there's imagination, the capacity to imagine. The historical text is a seductive one — it carries a unique kind of allure.
And I can say that what played the biggest role in the ability to write about historical subjects was imagination. Imagination, for a prisoner — especially a life-sentenced one — when there is no release date, there are no temporal dimensions, no past, no present, no future. There is only stagnant time. Dormant time. That time is packed with iron, shackles, locks, and suffering. The jailer's aim is to strip the life-sentenced prisoner of his humanity. But what did I do? I wanted to pierce through the time of the life sentence and find a time that is truly my own. I tried to create my own time dimension — somewhat metaphorical — and I turned to the historical text.
That's how it began with "Misk Al-Kifayah," and I truly felt that I had escaped from the prison world, and was able to create a time dimension of my own — the time of the narrative, whether historical, Palestinian, or personal, as a fighter and resister.
The cities I wrote about — like Yafa, for example — I visited it as a small child, going with my late father and my uncle. In a child's mind back then, there were no details of the place, but the impression I had was that this is our city, this is ours, that this city fell in 1948, Yafa — the Bride of the Sea — the songs about it, Fairuz's songs about Yafa.
But later, when I wrote about it — I had seen it in photos and books — I discovered that I was writing about Yafa because it was living inside me. We can live in cities, but they can also live inside us, and they stay with us wherever we go.
I wrote about Yafa twice — once about the 19th century Yafa during the era of Ibrahim Basha and Muhammad Ali Basha when they came to Palestine, and a second time I wrote about 2020 Yafa, the modern or contemporary version. With the same details — readers who saw the text told me: "You write as if you were wandering the streets of Al-Ajami neighbourhood."
There's also something beautiful about Al-Ajami, Yafa. When you look at photos of it from the sea, you don't see just a neighbourhood or a cluster of homes. You hear a scream suspended on the shore — a Palestinian scream, proof that the neighbourhood exists and its people endure despite all attempts at judaization.
[00:12:17] HOST: Also, when I wrote about Cairo, for example...
[00:12:19] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: I wrote the Cairo of the 14th and 15th centuries — the Mamluk Cairo, Al-Azhar, Muqattam, the Citadel. All of it written through my imagination. Imagination is what protects the prisoner, as does dreaming. To dream and imagine gives you the capacity to separate from reality — these are the key factors that contribute to the success of any narrative work.
[00:12:41] HOST: You were telling me that writing inside Israeli prisons is practically forbidden. So how did you manage to produce this number of novels — about 7 or 8 — from inside prison, despite it being a forbidden act?
[00:12:59] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: From the outset, writing becomes an act of resistance, and at the same time, you're being chased. Let's distinguish between two periods: there is the reality of the prisoner movement before October 7, 2023, and after that date.
Before October 7, we had some human conditions inside detention that meet the minimum threshold of human dignity — conditions that allowed the prisoner to continue surviving inside. And those conditions did not come as a gift from the jailer. We won them through our struggles. We went on hunger strikes — my last hunger strike lasted 42 days, only drinking water — in order to secure small gains and achievements that would help us endure. The prisons were full of books and libraries. We would get books as soon as they were published, brought in through family visits, the Red Cross, through various means. The warden would bring us those books against his own will — we managed to get a hold of books through our struggle, and they were permitted within that framework.
But any writing materials or handwritten things were forbidden in any form. If the prison guard found them, he'd confiscate them. So we used to hide our writings — written in notebooks, as notes — we'd write in them and conceal them. But if there was a cell inspection, the prison warden would confiscate them, and punish us either by cutting off family visits, or restricting access to the canteen, or denying us access to the exercise yard. There were many consequences.
Now, what does writing mean in this context? It becomes dangerous — it's writing under pressure and threat. And beautiful writing at the same time. Why? Because when I'm writing, I feel as though I'm writing the final words of my life, or the last words before he comes to confiscate them. So let me be authentic with my words — let me write with everything I have: hope, life, freedom, will, and steadfastness.
So I'd write and then immediately hide my writings, get it out of the cell, send it to specific locations where we'd conceal it, until we'd succeed in getting it out and liberating it from the prison. Whenever I finished a novel or a text, I would conduct what I called a "liberation operation" — how do we free it? How do we liberate it from the prison?
There were several methods we used to smuggle our texts to the outside. I can't share everything, because there are still prisoners inside — we don't want to reveal the secrets. But we did succeed, despite the prison guards. We got them out against their will.
I can say that not once did they manage to confiscate a single page from me. Of course, during the war, they burned my notebooks, academic notes — all gone. They destroyed everything, conducting a cultural genocide of all our libraries during the war. But when it comes to my novel writing itself, they never succeeded. I won in that aspect.
[00:16:07] HOST: It seems you used more than one method to stay under the radar. Did you have a specific routine? Like certain times of day you'd write? Were there people protecting you?
[00:16:16] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: There were certain things — not a routine, let's call them rituals — especially when I was starting the first chapter of a novel. When I felt ready to write, I knew it was time to start, pouring the text out of my head. I'd usually write the first chapter at 4 AM, around dawn, between 4 and 5 AM. The other prisoners in the cell would be asleep, and the guard would be bored of his shift. That's when I'd start writing.
And when I started writing, I'd be afraid. I'd actually tremble sometimes. But when I started writing, I'd have the ideas prepared. I have a notebook beside me — like a painter who carries a colour palette — I'd have one notebook for notes and another for the writing itself. But I'd tremble a little, be a little afraid of the writing. Why? Because I'd feel that if it became hard, I'd stop.
Let me give a nice analogy: it's like the first time in your life you want to tell a woman "I love you" — how will she react? That's what the first page of a novel felt like. I was afraid of the blank page.
When I'd start writing, I'd feel a little clumsy at first, but then things would work out, and gradually they would emerge. And if there was no music, no internal music in me for the writing, I wouldn't write. I'd wait for the musical rhythm to come. There's always a hidden music in the text, and I'd cultivate that atmosphere, and then I'd begin. Sometimes I'd write for half an hour, sometimes an hour. After finishing, I used to smoke — but not while writing. I don't drink coffee or do anything during. Why? Because this is an intimate ritual — no smoking or anything else.
I'd simply finish that first chapter, and after that things would flow. I'd carry a small notebook, always with me all day. I spent a lot of time daydreaming, lost in thought. I relied heavily on dreams, for example. Imagination had to be present — it's my foundation, it's the ink of my imagination.
Then after writing, the worry would begin — where to put the pages, where to hide them. I used to feel like a parent afraid for a child, or a mother wondering where her son or daughter is going. I felt that weight. I treated my texts as my children. My texts are my children.
Up until the text was complete, I would make three copies — three copies by hand, with my left hand. Why? Because one copy might get confiscated, or if I wanted to send it out with someone who was being released or moved to another prison, it might get intercepted, might be damaged. So I made three copies.
And I never liked anyone to copy for me. Many fellow prisoners would come and offer to copy for me. I'd say no. And I didn't let anyone read it either — not out of arrogance or narcissism. No, I felt the text wasn't ready yet. I operated by certain signals — this was something hidden, a secret. It was not ready to come out.
But before writing, I'd discuss a collection of ideas with friends — like the martyr Walid Daqqa, may he rest in peace, who was one of my closest friends. We'd debate ideas as he was writing, and he'd come discuss with me, and I'd do the same. But the general idea, the narrative arc, the drama, the outlines — I wouldn't share any of that with anyone. That was my secret recipe.
[00:20:51] HOST: Who was the first person who read your novels?
[00:20:55] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Inside prison while I was writing, no one. But once it got outside, the first person to read it was of course my late father, may he rest in peace. He was the godfather of the most beautiful words.
[00:21:05] HOST: Was he a writer?
[00:21:07] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: No, but he had the library, and he had a cultural and literary sense. He was the one who supported and encouraged me. And without my family standing by me, I wouldn't have done any of what I did. All the credit goes to my family. There's no official or unofficial institution — in Palestine you're on your own.
He'd give feedback and he allowed himself to intervene. If I was going to write an article, my father would sometimes change the title of the article. If he didn't like it, he'd just change it. So I'd tell him: "Dad, you can't do that — the article is like a woman, we can't play around with it or change it." He'd say: "No, I want to do it this way." I'd say: "Fine."
But for the novels, my brother Yousef is the first to read. Yousef is like the guardian of my words. He's my agent, my brother, my beloved — he's everything. I give Yousef a lot of credit. He is the one who decides. I only know how to write. When the text comes out, he takes over. When I need to intervene in something, he tells me not to. We work together.
[00:22:12] HOST: And do they give criticism, or make excuses because you're in prison?
[00:22:19] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: No — here's the main point. I refused to put on the covers of my books that I was a prisoner in jail. Why? Because I didn't want readers to go to a bookstore and say "Poor thing, he's a prisoner, let's read it out of sympathy." I don't want the words "poor thing." I don't want anyone to pity me or sympathise with me, or read my work just because I'm a prisoner. Either you read my work because I write well, or just don't.
That was the stance from the beginning. My brother would send me comments or notes to prison via the lawyer or during family visits. There were many people who didn't know I was in prison.
I'll share a lovely incident — one of the most beautiful comments I received. There was a young man from Jerusalem in the cell. His family would come to visit him every two weeks. One time he came back happy from a visit and told me: "My mother sends you her warmest regards." I said: "God bless her," but I don't know her. He said: "I asked my mother what she was reading on the bus." She said: "Yes, I had a lovely novel called 'Misk Al-Kifayah' by a writer named Bassem Khandaqji." He asked: "By who?" She answered: "Bassem Khandaqji." He told her: "Mom, he's here with me in the cell." She said: "Are you joking? He's a writer — he's outside, he's old, he lives outside." He said: "No, he's with me, he's here." She couldn't believe it.
After that, I discovered that yes, there are people who can't believe that you're in prison writing about history, writing fiction. The details I included — like street names, archaeological sites — made readers feel like I was strolling through the city. That's remarkable.
[00:24:24] HOST: Also, when I found out you were a prisoner, I expected maybe the language wouldn't be so precise, that there might be grammatical errors or some slips due to pressure. But no, the text was excellent. It's clear you managed to overcome all of these challenges. When you told me you're a bit afraid as you begin writing the first chapter — why that fear?
[00:24:45] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Because this text goes to the reader. And the reader has their own time. They're not only paying for the novel financially — they're paying with their time. They want to sit down and spend an hour or two reading. And I must respect that. I must respect the reader's time, their investment, by coming to them with a tight, precise text.
I'm not claiming that I'm writing brilliant novels that belong in world literature. No. I want to write a novel that achieves a set of goals — the most important one being entertaining the reader and trying to influence their knowledge. Because the novel is ultimately about consciousness. We enter a person's consciousness — how do we contribute to its development, to shaping a certain kind of awareness? All of these questions play a role.
Writing about Jerusalem, for example, was a great challenge. When you write about Jerusalem, you're writing about a cluster of civilisations, a cluster of cities. The Old City in Jerusalem is a historical and sacred weight that is both terrifying and magnificent. So when I wrote it, I described the Old City and the Via Dolorosa — the path of Christ's suffering, where he came from and where he went. That scene was alive in my mind — I had visited Jerusalem before. But I loved hearing from prisoners who were sons of Jerusalem.
There was a dear friend of mine who's still in prison, called Sanad — I send him my regards. I'd tell him: "Come, tell me about Jerusalem." And he'd describe the Old City for me. He described a scene — I think it was Al-Silsila neighbourhood or Gate. I said: "My character needed to go up some stairs." He told me: "There are no stairs there." I said: "I'm putting stairs." He said: "Why?" I said: "There's a difference between walking through Jerusalem in reality, and walking through Jerusalem through a poem written about Jerusalem." I was walking through Jerusalem and imagining it through the poems, the books written about it, through the stories the young men told.
And I give imagination unlimited horizons. My imagination leads me and takes us wherever it wants, to the point that imagination would seep into dreams. I used to dream of Jerusalem.
[00:27:14] HOST: But for you to have that cultural reservoir, you must have read a lot — which brings me to the question about the cultural life inside the prison. You completed a Master's degree in prison on Israeli Studies, and you were talking about the cultural life among you as prisoners. Tell us more about what were its pillars, what do you remember? And did you consider yourselves intellectuals who entered prison, or did you become intellectuals in prison?
[00:27:40] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: There's an educated elite in prison — there's a rich cultural, organisational, and academic life inside prison before October 7th. After October 7th, everything collapsed. There was a true collapse because of the ferocious assault launched by the fascist settler Ben Gvir against the prisoners, linking us to the ongoing genocide against our people. So there was a cultural genocide in every sense of the word — that was manifested in the destruction of libraries, the confiscation of notebooks, pens, and books. Nothing remained.
But before October 7th, we had a structured cultural life within organised frameworks and specific programs. Culturally, for example, we had daily sessions — lectures, cultural talks twice or once a day — covering many subjects: philosophy, thought, national education, revolutionary conduct, structured programs. We also ran training courses to graduate cadres for the prisoner movement. I supervised many courses, and I contributed significantly in that area, in addition to academic life.
There was a big transformation in prisons after 2012 in the quality of our academic lives. We succeeded in integrating university frameworks from universities in the homeland — specifically Al-Quds Abu Dis University, Al-Quds Open University, and Al-Aqsa University in Gaza. And our brother Marwan Barghouti, Abu Al-Qassam, who is still in prison — I send him a great salute — he is the pioneer in this field. He was the one who brought Al-Quds University in, and the educational group of Al-Quds University in Hadarim Prison. We called it "The Knowledge Liberation Circle."
We would sit for four hours, from 11 AM to 3:15 PM in the exercise yard, every single day — whether it's raining, hot, cold, summer. And we'd study seriously. Sometimes university professors are arrested and brought to our prison, and they were astonished by the level and quality of education there. Everything we had was new — all new subjects.
I earned a Master's degree in Israeli Studies and became fluent in Hebrew. Why? Because we want to not only learn about the Zionists in Arabic, but also in Hebrew. We have to understand their language. Hebrew here becomes a spoil of war — we took it as a spoil of war through understanding the enemy. And this contributed greatly and made things much easier when writing the novel in general, and it helped understand the hidden content of the Zionist ideological framework.
There was also cultural and organisational life in addition to imprisoned writers. There were prisoners who wrote, and we'd sit and discuss together — someone might bring a manuscript, I'd read it, if someone asked for my advice or help with publishing, we'd help each other. We were happy for each other. We'd celebrate whenever a prisoner released a novel, a book, or a poetry collection. We'd distribute sweets in prison because he managed to liberate his text.
[00:30:51] HOST: Tell us how you found out you'd won the 2024 prize.
[00:30:56] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: When I tell you how I found out, I still feel the blows in my body from the beatings I took. Because 2024 was the height of the genocide against our people, and as prisoners we were also experiencing that genocide at its peak.
My suffering began when I found out I had made it to the shortlist. When the shortlisting began, that's when the suffering started. They came and took me from the cell and put me in solitary confinement for about 48 hours in severe cold, sitting only on cold metal. I didn't know what was happening.
But after that, when I won the prize — I found out in early May, 2024. Again, they stormed my cell and took me in for interrogation. When they took me for interrogation, three Shabak officers were there — the Zionist security service, which technically doesn't have authority to interrogate prisoners, that's the job of the prison authority officers.
Three officers sat with me. I remember I was handcuffed behind my back. Before that, during transport between prisons, they smashed my glasses. An officer grabbed them off my face and broke them. I told him in Hebrew: "I can't see now." He said: "I don't want you to see anything — I only want you to see darkness."
So when the prize story happened, I remember one of the officers telling me: "You're causing quite a stir out there. The whole world is talking about you. How did you do this? How do you even manage to write? How do you take your books out of prison?" And immediately it clicked — I knew I had won the prize. The day before, one of the guys in the cell had said to me: "How would you know if you won the Booker?" I told him: "Don't worry, we'll know." And by God, it's like they heard me — the next day they came for me.
And when they took me for interrogation, I realised how vital it is for a Palestinian to control his narrative. You can't imagine — that Zionist officer was upset, pressured, and tense, threatening and warning: "We're going to deal with you." So what did I say to him? I told him: "Had I known my words would bother you this much, I would have written a lot more." I knew I'd probably be hit for this, so let me go all the way. Let me say what I want to say. And I provoked him further — I'd give him a free signed copy of the novel.
I paid a heavy price for that story. They took me back to the cell. That same night or the next day, they stormed in and beat me — they'd come back intermittently.
After that I found out officially. In the wing I was in, there was a small radio the guys had smuggled in. The guys secretly sent word to me: "Congratulations, you've won the Booker Prize."
Honestly, I'll tell you — in that moment, I didn't fully grasp how significant this prize is. I knew about the Booker, and that it's a very important prize, but there was no joy. Why? Because our people are being subjected to genocide, and my priorities were survival and staying alive in prison.
And yet, the guys celebrated me. You know what they did? They deprived themselves of their spoonful of jam — we each get one small spoonful of jam a day. The guys in my room collected 7 to 8 spoonfuls of jam. They spread them on two slices of stale bread — because the Zionists only gave us stale bread. They said: "We want to celebrate with you."
And they each said a few words, quietly so the warden wouldn't hear. The men in that cell were somehow a cross-section of all of historic Palestine — there were people from Gaza, the Galilee, Jerusalem, Ramallah, from Nablus, from every corner of the Palestinian geography. That moved me deeply.
Despite the beatings from the Zionists, despite how much they wanted to hurt me, here we are steadfast. When a prisoner denies himself a small spoonful of strawberry jam — tasteless, meaningless, but it matters to him because it keeps him alive — and he comes and gives it to me like a gift: "We want to celebrate." This confirms how much we Palestinians as fighters and as a people not only deserve to live — we sacrifice our lives so we can live. That's the difference.
[00:35:43] HOST: Did you ever think you would be released? Given that you had three life sentences, 300 years?
[00:36:26] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Absolutely, from the beginning. From the moment of my arrest, during my time in interrogation cells, I set my mind that I would be in for 20 years. From the first day they arrested me, I told myself: "I'll spend at least 20 years in prison." Everyone knows what they've done and understands the system in place. At least 20 years.
When I entered the prison, the guys said "There are deals, prisoner exchanges, etc..." But it was difficult for my family. The life-sentenced prisoner coming out on family visits — you can tell someone is a life-sentenced prisoner on family visits when you see their family cry every single time. For 20 years in prison, every single visit, my family would come in and everyone would cry.
And I thought: how can I tell them I expect to be here 20 years? I kept reassuring them year by year — "Not this year mom, but maybe next year." But once I shocked my father, may he rest in peace. I told him: "I'm going to spend 20 years in prison." He started screaming during the visit: "Don't say that, you're destroying me when you say that." He passed away before I was released. My father died in 2016. May he rest in peace.
But hope from the beginning has to be one's loyal companion. There was no other option for me and for all the life-sentenced, especially those with long sentences — there was great hope that we would be released. It's a mathematical certainty.
Even the guys who we left that are still inside — some are life-sentenced with incredibly hard lives. And as I speak with you now, I know what they're going through because I still live in their time. I know they're cold, they're hungry, what they're thinking about.
We cling to hope until the moment we hate it, telling it: "Enough, don't mock me." We talk to hope that way — sometimes it feels like an illusion. Is it possible to spend 300 years in jail? Am I really going to die in prison? But in the end, here — I was liberated despite the Zionists. Through the endurance and resistance of my people.
[00:38:48] HOST: From what you're saying, hope and imagination were perhaps the two feelings that accompanied you throughout the entire journey?
[00:38:56] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: They are the secret. Hope and imagination. Hope is the fuel for the will — the battery of a strong will is hope. Imagination was for writing. Imagination was for me an unlimited capacity to soar, to distance oneself.
Cinema also helped. There were televisions before the war, and cinema was one of my greatest loves. We had a channel that showed films. It's important I keep noting that all of this was before the war, before October 7th. Because now, none of it exists. The prison cells today are iron tanks, crammed with bodies.
But I assume imagination also has a dark side — where you daydream too much, you disconnect from reality. Yes, and inside prison you want to disconnect from reality, so in a way it helps. But the idea is: when you come back to reality, now that you're out, there's a convergence between your imagination and the real world.
[00:40:17] HOST: Was there anything you had imagined a certain way, and when you encountered it, it surprised you? Disappointed you? Or the opposite — something you feared would be worse but turned out better?
[00:40:26] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Nothing has turned out to be better yet. This is a brilliant question, actually.
When people ask me "What is freedom?" I say: "I don't know." When I was released, I told them: "I don't know what freedom is — I'm trying to understand it through small details."
In some places and times, imagination is more beautiful than reality. Specifically, when I came here, in more than one scenario that I had in mind, there were things I saw in reality that weren't what I had wanted or imagined. Maybe because I'm a novelist — and this frightens me — I'm accustomed to living between metaphors and analogies, or escaping from one metaphor to another. And I don't know how to do anything other than write and imagine — that's a problem.
Why is it a problem? Because I am a man who came out of prison after more than 21 years straight into exile. And after 21 years, the natural thing would be to go home — for my mother to hold me, to hug me, to see my family, to go to Nablus, to see the world and the people. But no, we were taken straight from the cell to exile.
True, we came to Egypt, and Egypt is a very warm country — I consider it Palestine, in a sense. It is the mother country, the foundation. But Egypt, in my consciousness, my upbringing, my culture, is my second homeland, in a sense. We were raised on Egyptian culture in all its details. But it is not my homeland. It is not my country. I don't belong here.
You know, when I came in the Uber — I don't know distances, I can't measure distances. I don't understand that to get from my house to here takes an hour by car. I don't understand these things, and partly I don't even want to understand. It doesn't matter to me where I am. Put me in a room, give me a bed — the view out the window doesn't matter. The room's window might overlook Taksim Square in Istanbul, or a square in Madrid, or Tahrir Square in Cairo. It doesn't matter.
Because I am not here, not at heart. What matters to me greatly, what I dream of, is that the window of my room looks out over Jabal Ebal, or Jabal Gerizim in Nablus, or Martyrs' roundabout in Nablus, or Hattin Street where I grew up. I'm not diminishing the depth and civilisation of the countries I'm in — but I say this with full honesty: I don't belong here. This is not my place.
[00:43:28] HOST: But truly, imagination is often more beautiful than reality. And speaking of exile — I think colonialism, when it imprisons Palestinians inside detention or jails them, is also exiling them from their homeland, but from within the homeland itself. So if you were to compare the exile inside Palestine, in prison, versus the exile you're in now here in Egypt, far from Palestine — how do you see that paradox?
[00:43:50] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: There's an important paradox, and it's also something remarkable. Prison, in its details and challenges, is lighter than exile. Prison has a clear equation: Endurance, Will, Hope — and that's it. You wake every day, you organise and engineer yourself based on that. So the day passes, so you don't break, so the jailer cannot penetrate your consciousness.
But in exile, things are harder. Exile is a vast, open space, filled with possibilities and choices. And being in the field of writing — at one point I thought the world of literature and culture I was heading into would be a beautiful world. The biggest shock after my release was what I saw from a distance at the world of literature and culture. Not all of it, but a large part of it is very difficult. It's a huge minefield. There are conflicting and contradictory currents. You feel that someone doesn't genuinely wish well for another. And when you want to say a word, you have to be careful — you have to understand what you're saying.
I was shocked by this reality. I had thought the world of literature and culture is what produces values and ethics, what shapes people's consciousness. But a large part of them turned out to be exhausted — the situation is difficult. I don't want to say more.
[00:45:16] HOST: But this surely also reflects on your writing. You mentioned before that writing under threat and pursuit gives words a certain weight. Now that danger doesn't exist — there are other kinds of risks and challenges, but not that particular kind of threat. So what happened to your writing after your release?
[00:45:38] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: I don't know how to write because there's no threat.
[00:45:41] HOST: So you haven't been able to write?
[00:45:42] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Until now, no. But I am preparing myself. In prison, there were incentives to write: challenge, resistance, steadfastness, freedom — all of those. In exile, there are also incentives. Exile is a prison in its own way — another form of imprisonment. I want to defeat it. I'm now defeating it through a range of activities — literary and cultural events, seminars, exhibitions, workshops, or writing articles, for example.
But narrative writing itself, that's a longer process. I want to find the right combination and find the motivations that protect me from exile when I write about it and write within it. That will happen soon.
And the first novel I'll write will be about my friend Walid Daqqa. I've been writing it in my mind six months before my release — because there were no pencils or notebooks to write with — its outlines are almost fully formed in my mind. But I won't write it while I don't understand exile. I won't write it while I'm unable to defeat exile the way I defeated detention.
Exile, in its essence — it's just as Mahmoud Darwish said: "Who am I without exile?" Mahmoud Darwish couldn't write in Ramallah. He'd leave Ramallah and go to Paris or elsewhere, just to write about his homeland from a distance. Perhaps we are governed by this condition — not knowing how to write about our homelands unless we're exiled from them.
Palestine is more beautiful when you imagine it. It becomes a complete woman in all her struggles, sacrifices, and heroism. Let's keep seeing her from afar — writing and painting about her.
[00:47:27] HOST: We're really looking forward to the novel about Walid Daqqa. Maybe you need to find your new ritual to be able to write.
[00:47:36] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Maybe I'll get an iron bed like the one we had... Of course, I would never actually do that. Yes, I need rituals. I need incentives more than rituals — to remove the fear in my relationship with exile, that's a must.
[00:47:50] HOST: Bassem, regardless of being in exile, we've spoken about more than one kind. You have a literary and cultural project for your writing, which is writing anti-colonial literature. Tell us more about what you mean by this?
[00:48:08] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: There's a concept I'm developing with a group of intellectuals called "Engagement Literature." And Engagement Literature began forming as a concept while I was in prison — specifically during the period of the genocide — that's when I began to reflect on it deeply.
It is fundamentally built on the question: how do we write and produce anti-colonial literature from within a colonial context? What do I mean by the colonial context? We Palestinians are distorted beings born from the womb of the Nakba. And this is a colonial Nakba — it was caused by the Zionist movement. The Zionists carried out the Nakba, and this Nakba produced a set of distorted beings: the refugee, the martyr, the prisoner, the displaced, the hunted, the wounded. It also created distorted time and geographies — the time of the camp, the time of the city, all of it distorted. This is the colonial context of the Zionist movement.
What does this demand? It demands not only resistance in its highest form — which is armed or combat resistance — but also cultural and literary resistance. And Ghassan Kanafani was perhaps the first intellectual and writer to address resistance literature, and to also address the Zionist in his novel "Returning to Haifa." The first novelist to introduce the Zionist character into a narrative text was Ghassan Kanafani, when he gave voice to that figure in the text. At that time, Kanafani faced criticism — there were some critics who misread the story. They said it might constitute normalisation to add a Zionist character — why are you giving him primary space? But you must. How will we defeat him otherwise?
This is where Engagement Literature becomes clear — it becomes clear when we as Palestinians and Arabs enter the depths of Zionist knowledge in order to confront it, and to liberate ourselves from it at the same time. We enter its hidden and secret contents, trying to understand it. In their language, too. Today, Palestinians need to understand that language.
Engagement Literature also transforms the Palestinian from the individual to collective, and moves them to the universal — and by universal, I mean moving away from sectarianism and racism. We Palestinians are not inherently racist, because we have been subjected to racism. And therefore the universal requires an open identity, not a closed one. The Palestinian today is still forming his identity, because identity is a process, and when it presents ready-made answers, it becomes a fascist and racist identity. So the identity must remain open.
In Engagement Literature, feminism also becomes central. Palestine by nature is feminine — a woman. And as a writer, I have never written a text that was not feminine, a text that carries a feminine spirit — Palestine's spirit, in all her beautiful, sorrowful, and joyful manifestations.
Engagement Literature emphasises feminism not just as a slogan, and not as treating the woman as a secondary contradiction to be subordinated to the primary contradiction with colonialism. The Palestinian woman has been treated as a logo — the mother of the martyr, the mother of the prisoner. But we never truly engaged with her. She is a woman before she is the mother of a martyr or a prisoner or a fighter.
Another critical thing in Engagement Literature — and I always clarify this very carefully — is the humanisation of the Zionist Other. What is meant by humanisation? It does not mean normalisation, nor proving that he's human. No human kills an entire family. What is meant by humanisation is that the Zionist movement has always treated the Zionist as a superhuman — a miraculous being beyond ordinary reality, elevated above it, becoming more than a human, a kind of deity. I want to bring him back down to the human level. That's humanisation. We want to bring him to a human level to understand him, so we can defeat him. As long as he remains elevated above us, I cannot defeat him.
[00:52:38] HOST: And of course you intended to do this explicitly and directly in "A Mask the Color of the Sky" parts one and two.
[00:52:45] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: Yes, with part two going even further. In "A Mask the Color of the Sky," the story is about how Nour Al-Shahdi impersonates the identity of a Zionist named Or Shapira, taking on his personal identity. And then Nour discovers he must discard the Zionist mask in order to search for identity as a Palestinian. There are invisible dialogues between him and Or Shapira, without them ever actually meeting.
I remember in one of the dialogues, Nour stands in front of a mirror and imagines talking to Or: "Or, you need to look at yourself in the mirror, and you'll see me in it." And Or replies: "If I want to see you in the mirror, that means I disappear." Meaning: you become human as a Palestinian. That's why we speak. Every time I deconstruct the brutality and racism of this Zionist colonial, I am reclaiming my humanity.
In part two, the battle and story changes. The protagonist becomes a singular Zionist figure. I write about a young Zionist in his prime, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He's a former officer in the paratroopers — one of the elite units of the Zionist army — living in isolation, cut off from the world. He discovers by chance that a Palestinian had stolen his identity. This is where I enter the hidden worlds of Zionist consciousness through Or Shapira. I infiltrate the depths of that consciousness, not to play with it — I want to expose it and present it to the Arab, Palestinian, and international reader.
[00:54:46] HOST: But you go so deep into the psychology of the coloniser — how did you actually reach that level? To know what he's thinking. What were your tools?
[00:54:54] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: What led to Part Two — beyond the database I collected — is that I did my Master's degree in Israeli Studies, I'm fluent in Hebrew, and more importantly, I exposed myself to the entire Zionist media apparatus. Inside prison, I used to listen to Hebrew radio — everything, even the commercials. I read Hebrew newspapers, magazines, books. I watched in Hebrew for about a year, just to create Or Shapira, the protagonist in part two. And to detach myself from him as a Palestinian.
Because if I intervened as a Palestinian, he might end up shouting slogans at the end of the novel — I don't want that. This is how you create empathy between each other — then he has no value. This was an exhausting process — being a writer, a resister, a prisoner, pursued by the jailer, while simultaneously, internally, speaking Hebrew. What happened is that I was thinking in Hebrew but writing in Arabic. That's the crucial distinction. And I was confident in myself, confident in my identity as an intellectual and fighter — I was safe.
I also consulted psychology books to understand post-traumatic stress and the possibility that it could lead to schizophrenia. I wanted the character to reach that stage. And of course, the intended meaning of schizophrenia is not just that a person develops schizophrenia — schizophrenia exists in every aspect of Zionist consciousness.
For example, a Zionist officer, a pilot, has no problem kissing his children in the morning — spoiling them, playing with them, singing to them, feeding them, taking them to school — and in the afternoon, going and bombing a school in Gaza and killing children. No problem at all. They are perfectly okay with that scenario.
So I focused on all of this — the moral, intellectual, and philosophical schizophrenia — through the character of Or Shapira. In the story, Or Shapira asks unethically of the Palestinian to help him become human. And Mariam Fatim tells him: "I'm not going to help you become human. It's not my job. You have to do that yourself."
But what I tried to do through part two was to deconstruct this Zionist racist structure, in order to know how to reclaim myself. That's the external identity, which emerges during the struggle with the Zionist. But there's also the internal identity. One day I'll be able to achieve liberation through internal identity.
A friend recently asked me: "Bassem, when will you smile a genuine smile — a smile that isn't a message directed at the Zionist?" And I said: "One of these days, I will laugh, smile, be happy without any connection to them. Not because he provoked you, not because of him" — because he won't exist as a coloniser in that moment.
[00:58:33] HOST: You also focus heavily on the idea of the victim becoming the executioner. And it also caught my attention when I was reading about your trial — you told the judge something similar. Tell us more about that moment.
[00:58:57] BASSEM KHANDAQJI: From the beginning, I was raised with a left-wing Marxist upbringing, and I belong to a leftist party. I don't resist the Zionist because he's Jewish. No — I fight against a coloniser. Regardless if it's an American, Arab, or Chinese coloniser — I fight a coloniser that is present on the land.
When they arrested me, they tried me in a military court — giving an unjust and invalid verdict with no meaning or value. They gave me an opportunity to speak before sentencing. Three judges were present in the military court. I spoke, and among what I said was: "You have killed my humanity — it was you who killed it. It wasn't me who killed it. If I fought, carried a rifle, and resisted, it was because of your existence." And the rifle is not a human matter — it's a weapon.