Published by Avvenire, March 20, 2018
In his work the Syrian writer can not break away from the tormented city: “Despite everything, mine has never been a country prone to fanaticism: plural identity is an ancient value.”

Published by Il Manifesto, March 28, 2018
The novel about a prisoner’s life, a prisoner of violence but also of the thousand unpardonable compromises that a dictatorship imposes on oppressed individuals. There are no knives in the kitchens of this city (Bompiani, pp. 288, euro 18), tells through the life events of a family in Aleppo the genesis and consolidation of the Assad regime that dominates Syria since the Sixties, describing the internal repression and annihilation, which invites us to reflect on all forms of contemporary despotism.

Published by Ansa Med, March 19, 2018
“We would have liked the government to listen to us, to open up a new path for human rights and a better life, but we were a group of deluded, dreamers: we did not understand that it is not allowed for Arabs to enjoy democracy” . So the Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa spoke of the first hopes of change nourished by the demonstrations in the square of March 2011, then resulted in repression and in the last, tragic seven years of war.

Published by La Repubblica, March 16, 2018
It was 2011, and while the wind of hope of the Arab springs overwhelmed the region and even infected Syria, In Praise of Hatred came out in Italy: a powerful and uncompromising book that made known the most important voice of Syrian literature today, that of Khaled Khalifa. Since then, the writer has never stopped expressing his support of the youth who in 2011 had taken to the streets dreaming of a different country. Armed with recognition and the choice not to leave Damascus even in its darkest …

Published by La Stampa, March 10, 2018
Aleppo, a family portrait in an inferno, between Vivaldi’s music and street bombs
The lives of four brothers unravel parallel to the construction of the Assad regime. From the 70s, with the occupation of the army and schools, to the (disappointed) hopes of the 2000s.
 

Hoda Barakat was a guest of Chiasso Letteraria 2016: Seconda classe, in Italy, and was interviewed by Stefano Montefiori, for La Lettura, Corriere della Sera, April 24th, 2016. Below, excerpts of a summary of this conversation, published on the blog imago 2.0.
Hoda Barakat, a Lebanese writer, after a period of great participation in events and discussions on the Arab world and its alleged features, decided to thin out her appearances in public, especially in the literary events currently focusing on the relationship between Europe and Islam in her second home, France.