writer

Mustafa Khalifa

مصطفى خليفة

Also known as: author of The Shell

Journeys

Mustafa Khalifa: Thirteen Years in Tadmor, and the Book That Survived Them

Mustafa Khalifa's story is about what Syria did to its own people before the cameras arrived — in the prison at Palmyra, where men disappeared into a system designed to erase them, and sometimes came back.

Biography

Mustafa Khalifa is a Syrian novelist and screenwriter who was arrested at Damascus airport in 1982 upon returning from film studies in Paris — accused of membership in the Muslim Brotherhood despite being a Christian. He spent thirteen years in Tadmor Military Prison in Palmyra under conditions Amnesty International described as among the worst in the world. Released in 1994, he spent years processing what he had witnessed before publishing The Shell (القوقعة) in 2008 — a semi-autobiographical novel that became the most important work of Syrian prison literature and was translated into multiple languages.

Documentation Status

VerificationConfirmed

Journeys1

Key Facts

Born:1948-01-01

Place:Syria

Nationality:Syrian