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. 

Published by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 11, 2018

In a night-black novel Khaled Khalifa carries the dreams of his homeland to the graveA man named Nightingale. He would have to be a singer and a lover fluttering through a scenario of magical realism or an old Oriental poem. Not one, however, to whom the concern for the corpse of his father, who is already decaying, gives the feeling that he is still a creature capable of being found with a little backbone, and not merely “jelly-mass.”

Published by Literatur Spiegel, May 2018
A crazy journey with a corpse through a country at war: Khaled Khalifa’s Syrian novel Death Is Hard Work
 
It is very easy to tell stories during wartime. One is surrounded by monstrosities, every day a new one.
And something else – which can be found in Syrian author Khaled Khalifa’s new novel, Death Is Hard Work, now available in German.

Published by The Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 26, 2018

Renowned Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa lives in Damascus to this day. In his novel “Death Is Hard Work”, he tells of a country where the people’s survival depends on the mood of the soldiers.

Published by Qantara, June 7, 2017
In his novel ″The Baghdad Eucharist″, Iraqi author Sinan Antoon probes deeply into the nature of loss and its impact on collective memory. Intertwining two distinct threads, he teases the reader to reach a conclusion about a community on the edge. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book.

An interview by Ruth Reif, for Der Standaart, published on October 2, 2015

“My soul remains in Syria»
A year after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, Samar Yazbek was forced to flee. Her name was blacklisted. Since then she has returned several times secretly to her home to interview people.