Interviewed by Lena Bopp for FAZ, April 13, 2020
In his novels, Khaled Khalifa goes to court with the Syrian regime. Nevertheless, the writer still lives in Damascus and voluntarily returns to his home country from every trip abroad. How can that be?
 

By Maya Jaggi, published by The Guardian, on April 15, 2020
Midway through Dima Wannous’s novel, the narrator recalls a neighbour who fell sick during a dire shortage of doctors and medicine. The woman’s daughter had to take time off work to hunt for a hospital bed. “So, silently, I begged my own mother not to fall ill,” she says, to “not contract a virus or other disease.”
As well as having a chilling resonance today, the anecdote offers a glimpse of daily life for millions of Syrians since the 2011 revolution. …

By Sinan Antoon, Iraqi author, Published on December 16, 2019, by The New York Times.

Safa al-Sarray was killed when Iraqi forces fired a tear-gas canister at his head.

Iraqis have been protesting since early October against the dysfunctional and corrupt political system installed by the United States after the 2003 occupation. Unlike previous waves of protests that began in 2011, this protest was spontaneous and not organized by any party.
The most common and passionate slogan throughout these protests has been, “We want a homeland.” It reflected the anger and alienation Iraqis felt toward …

“Samar Yazbek, the soldier of Syrian memory”
By Victoria Gairin, for Le Point
(Photo credit: Rania Stephan)
Revealing the truth is what drives Samar Yazbek. “Quick, before we all sink into collective amnesia. I am so afraid that we will all lose our memories… We cannot retain from a conflict only figures!” Yet they are there, relentless and monstrous, yet another record of an endless conflict. More than 380,000 dead in almost 9 years, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday January 4.

 Lena Bopp interviews Sinan Antoon for FAZ

 January 2020

Two final questions translated here:

Your last novel “The book of collateral damage” (“Index”) is (…) a kind of archive, a catalog full of things that once existed in Iraq and that are lost
I imagine the terrible concept of collateral damage as a black hole that swallows up everything: houses, people, animals, trees. Everything that life is. The book is also about the possibility of archiving. 

By Christophe Ayad, For Le Monde, July 2019
(Photo credit: Lea Crespi, Pasco)
Great talks with great writers 2 | 5. The Lebanese writer, translated all over the world, received the coveted “Arab Booker” in April. This meeting takes place in Paris, her adopted city, where she talks about literature, religion, and the civil war that ignites the Arab world.
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