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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Interview By Annick Cojean, for Le Monde, October 2019
 
We must not let the memory of the events that have occurred since the first demonstrations in March 2011 dissolve, and demand more democracy (…) “So many things have happened,” she said, “magnificent and cruel, that you must tear yourself from oblivion. And there are so many other elements to show Syrians as this image of shattered victims, undermined by bitterness. They fought. They acted. They hoped. And the cause was noble. We must give them justice. Tell the truth ! Quick, …

Interview By Christophe Ayad, for Le Monde, July 25th, 2019
Some extracts translated into English published below.

Hoda Barakat is a rare kind of writer. Born in Lebanon in 1952, she published her first novel relatively late, in 1990, shortly after leaving her country because of the civil war.In six novels, she has won almost all of the most prestigious awards in Arabic literature:

Published by Le Monde, September 27, 2018. By Eglal Errera.
Also featured in Le Monde des Livres.
Among all the works that come to us from Syria or from the diaspora, this novel has a unique timbre that mixes absolute realism and wonder.

Venturing into what is most intimate, Yazbek returns to the novel, her original vocation (Cinnamon, Buchet-Chastel, 2013). Amongst all the works that come to us from Syria or from the diaspora, this novel has a unique timbre that mixes absolute realism to wonder. Rima, the narrator of La Marcheuse (The blue pen), is silent. She hears the sound of her …

Jean Hatzfeld for Le Monde des Livres, April 15  2016
Les Portes du néant, à la frontière turque, s’ouvrent une première fois sur la route qui mène à la région d’Idlib, dans le nord-ouest de la Syrie. Samar Yazbek les franchit en août 2012, en se faufilant dans un trou creusé sous des barbelés. Une voiture l’attend, qui traverse la nuit sur un fond sonore de bombardements, avec à l’intérieur Maysara et Mohammed, deux frères d’armes rebelles : ses anges gardiens.

A review by Eglal Errera, for Le Monde des livres, published Firday 16th of October, 2015.
Photo credit: La Croix.

A comforting feeling of time and space. Where does this feeling come from in Lebanese writer Jabbour Douaihy’s American neighborhood? When one knows that this story takes place in today’s Lebanon, a short distance away from the Syrian border, in the city of Tripoli that is particularly exposed to the horrors of the killings in the neighboring hills, and shaken by incessant communal clashes, that peaceful feeling is almost shocking.