Of Palestinian background, Omar Khalifah grew up in Jordan. He holds a PhD from Columbia University, and currently teaches Arabic literature and culture at Georgetown University’s Qatar campus. His previous publications include Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary (Edinburgh University Press, 2017) and a short story collection in Arabic, Ka’annani Ana (As if I Were Myself), published in Amman in 2010. Sand-catcher, published in Jordan in 2020 by Dar al-Ahlia, is his first novel.
« Omar Khalifah surprises his readers with tightly-wrought prose, succinct and dense. » Katia Tawil, The Independent