The celebrated Syrian short-story writer M. Raouf Bachir was born in Aleppo and published his first stories in Al-Jundi magazine in 1956. He published many stories in magazines such as Literature, Authors, Arabi (Kuwaiti Magazine), Literature Stand, and Literature Week, etc.
His books include the short-story collections Journey of Batman (Beirut, 1970); The Other Face (Beirut, 1974); and Flower of Thuraya (Damascus,1974). He became a member of the Committee of Story and Novel in the Arab Writers Union in 1974, and was honored by the Cultural Center and Arabic Association Union for Arts and Literature in 2011. Bachir has lived in exile in Turkey since last year. Since the beginnings of the uprisings and carnage in Syria, he has turned from writing fiction to producing stark, beautiful, emotionally honest poetry about the Syrian situation, and about losing one’s homeland and being forced into exile in one’s eighties.
