Rencontre avec l'écrivain Karim Kattan

Karim Kattan is a Palestinian writer; he is the author of novels, short stories and poetry. In 2021, he published *Le Palais des deux collines* (Elyzad), winner of the Prix des Cinq Continents de la francophonie, for which he was invited to Laval in 2022 to attend the Festival du Premier Roman et des Littératures Contemporaines. In 2023, he was awarded a writing residency in Mayenne, during which he completed *Eden at Dawn* (Elyzad), which won numerous awards, including the Literary Prize for a Second Novel and the Special Prize. Karim Kattan’s work explores, amongst other themes, war, the question of territory and love. In September 2026, he published his third novel, *Septentrionale* (Elyzad), which recounts a night-time escape across a war-torn territory: that of Myriam and Joseph, who, to escape the bombardments, drive at breakneck speed northwards in the hope of reuniting with their loved ones. In the privacy of the car, amidst ravaged landscapes and enigmatic encounters, they revisit their memories and wounds, confiding their fears, desires and emotions. In this intensely gripping nocturnal road trip, Karim Kattan draws on the fantastical and on myths to explore contemporary violence and the disappearance of a land.