Draft:Muhammad Kamil al-Khatib

Muhammad Kamal al-Khatib is a Syrian author and independent scholar who was born in the first half of the 20th century. Part of the Jeel al-Thawra or the "Revolutionary Generation" of the 1960s, al-Khatib has written novels, short stories, scholarly pieces, and works of criticism.

His 1984 novel Just Like a River was translated into English in 2003, introducing him to a non-Arabic audience for the first time. Seen through the points of view of three main characters (Chief Sergeant Yunis, his adult daughter Dallal, and Yusuf, the man with whom she shares a fraught, perpetually speculative romance), al-Khatib captures the variations of contemporary, 1980s Damascus interpersonal life, set amidst the backdrop of international mobility, apprehension of regional conflict, and nostalgia for the rural in the midst of the metropole.