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Syrian Literature
Syrian literature is modern fiction written or orally performed in Arabic by writers from Syria since the independence of the Syria, Syrian Arab Republic in 1946. It is part of the historically and geographically wider Arabic literature. Literary works by Syrian authors in the History of Syria#Medieval era, historical region of Syria since the Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad era are considered general Arabic literature. In its historical development since the beginnings of Quran#Compilation and preservation, compilations of the Quran in the 7th century and later written records, the Arabic language has been considered a geographically comprehensive, standardized written language due to the religious or literary works written in classical Arabic. This sometimes differs considerably from the individual regionally spoken variants, such as Syrian Arabic, Syrian, Egyptian Arabic, Egyptian or Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan spoken forms of Arabic. In Arabic, ''bilad ash-sham'' refers to the re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Hanna Diyab
Antun Yusuf Hanna Diyab (; born ''circa'' 1688) was a Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller. He originated the best-known versions of the tales of ''Aladdin'' and ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' which have been added to the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' since French orientalist Antoine Galland translated and included them, after which they soon became popular across the West. Diyab was long known only from brief mentions in the diary of Antoine Galland, but the translation and publication of his Arabic manuscript autobiography in 2015 expanded knowledge about his life. Reassessments of Diyab's contribution to ''Les mille et une nuits'', Galland's widely influential version of the oriental stories of ''One Thousand and One Nights'', have argued that Diyab is central to the literary history of such famous tales as ''Aladdin'' and ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'', despite Diyab only having been named as "Hanna from Aleppo" in Galland's diary. Literary scholars Ruth B. Bottigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Najat Abdul Samad
Najat Abdul Samad, alternative spelling Najat Abed Alsamad, (, ''romanized:'' Najāt ʻAbd al-Ṣamad, born 1967, As-Suwayda, Syria), is a Syrian fiction writer, poet and gynecologist. She has published several novels, including ''La Ma' Yarweeha'' (''No Water to quench their Thirst),'' winner of the 2018 Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel, published in a German translation. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany. Education and career Abdul Samad was born in As-Suwayda, Syria, in 1967 as part of the local Druze community. After her medical training as a gynecologist and obstetrician at the University of Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine and working in this profession for several years, she obtained a degree in Arabic Language and Literature from Damascus University. In a 2017 interview, she spoke of having met women in her clinic who had lost everything, who needed understanding, help, guidance and treatment, and that many of them had suffered from more than one form of violence and as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Saadallah Wannous
Saadallah Wannous () (1941 – 15 May 1997) was a Syrian playwright, writer and editor on Arabic theater. He was born in the village of Hussein al-Bahr, near Tartous, where he received his early education. He studied journalism in Cairo, Egypt and later served as editor of the art and cultural sections of the Syrian official newspaper ''Al-Baath'' and the Lebanese daily ''As-Safir''. For many years, he was also director of the department for music and theater in the Ministry for Culture and National Guidance of Syria. In the late 1960s, he traveled to Paris where he studied theater and encountered various currents, trends, and schools of European theater. His career as a playwright had begun in the early Sixties with several short, one-act plays, characterized by his fundamental theme: the relationship between the individual and society and its authorities. Career In the late 1960s, triggered by the Arab defeat of the 1967 war with Israel, political Arabic theater was born. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Nizar Qabbani
Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani (, , ; 21 March 1923 – 30 April 1998) was a Syrian poet. He is considered to be Syria's National Poet. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, religion, and Arab empowerment against foreign imperialism and local dictators. Qabbani is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world."Nizar Qabbani: From Romance to Exile”, Muhamed Al Khalil, 2005, A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Studies in partial ulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate College of the University of Arizona, USA. His famous relatives include Abu Khalil Qabbani, Sabah Qabbani, Rana Kabbani, Yasmine Seale. Biography Early life Nizar Qabbani was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus to a middle class merchant family. Qabbani was raised in ''Mi'thnah Al-Shahm'', one of the neighborhoods of Old Damascus and studied at the National Scientific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Faraj Bayrakdar
Faraj Bayrakdar (; born 1951 in Tir Maaleh near Homs, Syria) is a Swedish-Syrian poet and writer. He was a political prisoner in his home country for almost 14 years. After an international campaign for his release and a presidential amnesty in 2000, he went into exile in Sweden in 2005. He is best known for his poetry collection ''A Dove in Free Flight,'' that was published without the author's knowledge while still in a Syrian prison. These poems were first published in Arabic and later translated into French and English. His work is part of contemporary Syrian prison literature. Biography Bayrakdar began writing poetry during his school years and started a short-lived literary magazine with his friends while studying Arabic literature at Damascus University. He was arrested twice in connection with his work on the magazine, but was soon released again. He made his debut as a poet with the 1979 poetry collection ''wa-mā anta waḥdaka'' ''(You Are Not Alone)''. Since then, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Adonis (poet)
Ali Ahmad Said Esber (, North Levantine ; born 1 January 1930), also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis ( ), is a Syrian poet, essayist and translator. Maya Jaggi, writing for The Guardian stated "He led a modernist revolution in the second half of the 20th century, "exerting a seismic influence" on Arabic poetry comparable to T.S. Eliot's in the anglophone world." Adonis's publications include twenty volumes of poetry and thirteen of criticism. His dozen books of translation to Arabic include the poetry of Saint-John Perse and Yves Bonnefoy, and the first complete Arabic translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (2002). His multi-volume anthology of Arabic poetry ("Dīwān ash-shi'r al-'arabī"), covering almost two millennia of verse, has been in print since its publication in 1964. A perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Adonis has been described as the greatest living poet of the Arab world. Biography Early life and education Born to a modest Alawite farmin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Muhammad Al-Maghut
Muhammad al-Maghout (1934–April 3, 2006) () was a renowned Syrian writer and poet. Biography He was born in the town of Salamiyah, Hama Governorate, in Syria to an Isma'ili family. He was married to the poet Saniya Salih. Muhammad Maghout has been credited as the father of Arabic free verse poetry, liberating Arabic poems from the traditional form and revolutionizing the structure of the poem. While in prison in the 1950s, he wrote his first poems on cigarette papers as a personal memoir of his prison experience, later discovered to be revolutionary poetry. Without formal education, his future work tapped into his vivid imagination, innate mastery of words, and intuition. He wrote for theater, TV, and cinema. Maghout's work combined satire with descriptions of social misery and malaise, and what he viewed as an ethical decline among rulers in the region. Some of his themes included the problems of injustice and totalitarian governments. The struggle of the marginaliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ghada Al-Samman
Ghadah Al-Samman (; born 1942) is a Syrian writer, journalist and novelist born in Damascus in 1942 to a prominent and conservative Damascene family. Her father was Ahmed Al-Samman, a president of the University of Damascus. She is distantly related to poet Nizar Qabbani, and was deeply influenced by him after her mother died at a very young age. Career Her father’s appreciation for both Western and Arabic literature deeply influenced her, imbuing her with a unique style that blends elements of both traditions. Raised in the conservative society of Damascus, she encountered challenges that shaped her literary voice. She published her first book of short stories,''Your Eyes Are My Destiny'' (), in 1962, which was moderately successful. Initially, she was categorized alongside traditional feminine writers. However, her subsequent works transcended the confines of romantic and feminine literature, venturing into broader social, feminist, and philosophical themes. She earned a B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Haidar Haidar
Haidar Haidar (; 1936 – 5 May 2023) was a Syrian writer and novelist. He acquired a wide reputation for his critical attitude towards political and religious institutions and his willingness to cover controversial topics in a rational way. He published seventeen books of fiction, short stories, essays and biography, including '' The Desolate Time'' (''Az-Zaman al-Muhish''), which was chosen by the Arab Writers Union as one of the best 105 books of the 20th century. Literary career His novel ''Walimah li A'ashab al-Bahr'', ('' A Feast for the Seaweeds''), was banned in several Arab countries, and even resulted in a belated angry reaction from the clerics of Al-Azhar University upon reprinting in Egypt in the year 2000. The clerics issued a Fatwa banning the novel, and accused Haidar of heresy and offending Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Khaled Khalifa
Khaled Khalifa (; 1 January 1964 – 30 September 2023) was a Syrian novelist, screenwriter and poet. He was nominated three times and shortlisted twice for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). Some of his novels have been translated into English, German, French, Spanish and other languages. His works frequently criticized the Syrian Baathist government, leading to their ban in the country. Biography Early life Khalifa was born on 1 January 1964 in the village Urum al-Sughra near Aleppo to a Syrian family of olive farmers and agricultural machinery traders. Khalifa’s extended family was engaged in olive cultivation and the production of olive oil, as well as in the trade of spare parts for trucks, cars and agricultural machines. He was the fifth child in a family of nine boys, four girls, two mothers, and a father who worked as a policeman until he retired in 1965. He first studied in the city of Aleppo, where his family lived at the time, and graduated from A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Salim Barakat
Salim Barakat (, ; born 1 September 1951 in Qamishli) is a Kurdish-Syrian novelist and poet. He is considered one of the innovative poets and novelists writing in Arabic. Since the 1970s, he has published numerous novels, poetry collections, biographies and children's books. Several of his works have been translated into Kurdish, English, French, German, Swedish and other languages. Life and career Barakat was brought up in the city of Qamishli in an area in northern Syria with a large Kurdish population and spent most of his youth there. In 1970 he moved to Damascus to study Arabic literature but after one year he moved to Beirut where he stayed until 1982. While in Beirut he published five volumes of poetry, a diary and two volumes of autobiography. He moved to Cyprus and worked as a managing editor of the prestigious Palestinian journal '' Al Karmel'', whose editor was Mahmoud Darwish. In 1999 he moved to Sweden, where he still resides. He wrote about Kurdish culture, as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
