Interview by Will Forrester for PEN Transmissions, December 8, 2021
I think that if I could go back to those days, I would do the same thing all over again. I never regret going back to Syria – being there at the frontline, and in the middle of the war – nor do I regret leaving.I always tried to stay alive, but with my personal condition I had to do what needed to be done, despite the fear. By that token, in returning and sharing in death and people’s pain, through my …
Out of the gutter is a most unusual read: A saga that mixes tragedy, and a dark, off the wall humor.
A daughter and her mother in an apartment in London. Every evening, they meet, with an occasional glass of whisky, going over the times, not so long ago, where they were a large family, all women, living in Damascus.
Sudan, 1968, the military coup taking place in Khartoum echoes all the way to the small rural town of Hajer Narti, where the body of a young girl has just been found in the Nile.
Told in the first person, Asma Al Atawna’s debut coming of age novel captures with beautiful and surprising honesty the life of an eponym young woman.
In his novel, The Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam, Khoury tells the story of a Palestinian who – just like his people – fights for a place he can call home and for the memory of those who have been wronged.
During Conrad Festival 2021, the author talked about the social and political mechanisms that turn victims into perpetrators. How is it possible that the incredible suffering experienced by a given community fails to prevent it from inflicting violence on others?
Listen to the interview with Hanna Jankowska here.