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Syria

Damascus street
© Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Mohammad and Youssef
By Omar Youssef Souleimane
Mohammad is torn between fear and excitement. He doesn’t know this man. What if he’s an informant?
Translated from French by Ghada Mourad
The covers of the books featured in the Watchlist: Offshore Lightning, The Country of Too, No One...
The Watchlist: July 2023
By Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll recommends new and forthcoming books translated from Arabic, French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Beyond Representation: Life Writing by Women in Arabic
By Sawad Hussain & Nariman Youssef
One cannot write about real-life experiences from the place of the “I” without laying claim to a place in the world.
Six Proposals for Participation in a Conversation about Bread
By Rasha Abbas
“That’s what we get for supporting Communism: standing in line for this black loaf.”
Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie
A Note from the Editors: January 2020
By Words Without Borders
A note from the editors on the occasion of our Rojava poetry feature.
Beyond the Headlines: Poetry from Rojava
By Shook
These poems display the health and vitality of a literature that has already proved to be a potent medium for self-expression, a grounds for linguistic experimentation, and an important declaration of autonomy itself.
[Only the madman has stayed behind in the city]
By Ciwan Nebî
What does he have to fear?
Translated from Kurdish (Kurmanji) by Shook & Zêdan Xelef
Multilingual
[I needed to wake up at 3:00 in the morning to make it to work]
By Ciwan Qado
I proceeded with caution / Like a marble inching toward the line
Translated from Kurdish (Kurmanji) by Shook & Zêdan Xelef
Multilingual
A red sunset seen through the windows of a dark room
Photo by El Swaggy on Unsplash
[I speak to]
By Cihan Hesen
silence sullen-faced fate reaches my ears
Translated from Kurdish (Kurmanji) by Shook & Zêdan Xelef
Multilingual
Joyful, Painful, Surreal: Life As a Parent
By Karen M. Phillips
The intensity of the parent-child relationship, with its high emotional stakes, life-and-death responsibility, and inescapable physical proximity, makes for powerful stories.
The World at Home: US Writing in Translation
By Susan Harris
This issue is not a departure but a continuation.
Seven Stories
By Osama Alomar
A strange thing began to happen in the country.
Translated from Arabic by C.J. Collins
“It’s Us and Them”: Writing from and about Divided Countries
By Susan Harris
In the current environment of relentless political strife . . . debate deteriorates into name-calling; partisans morph into zealots, complex issues are reduced to binary terms, and hostility seethes just beneath the surface.
A Doctor from Homs
By Wendy Pearlman
Most massacres occurred after Friday prayers.
Graphic Novels at WWB: The First Ten Years
By Susan Harris
The narrative threads that weave through the last ten years tell a tale in themselves.
I Will Leave, without Lying Down on the Dewy Grass Even Once
By Noor Dakerli
I just want to know one thing: how would it feel to hold your hand?
Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie
The Liberated Voice: Three Writers from Syria
By Alice Guthrie
Their work is deeply entangled with the extreme politics of the context in which they’ve grown up and lived.
A Bedtime Story for Eid
By Zaher Omareen
He said they’d taken Omar away naked.
Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie
I Am a Refugee
By Mohamed Raouf Bachir
When they torched my poems they burned me along with them
Translated from Arabic by Thomas Aplin
Multilingual
The Art of Expressing One’s Agony: An Interview with M. Raouf Bachir
By Alice Guthrie
In short, the ongoing war in Syria is not a revolution.
Falling Down Politely, or How to Use Up All Six Bullets Instead of Playing Russian Roulette
By Rasha Abbas
You pour water onto the severed head once again.
Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie
Multilingual
Exile is Born at This Moment
By Osama Esber
When blood is exiled, / nothing binds it to the race.
Translated from Arabic by the author
Exiled in Europe: An Interview with Three Women Writers
By Olivia Snaije
“Sometimes I feel like I’m a medium who brings ghosts back from the past.”
Bag of the Nation
By Osama Alomar
The surprise shook me like an earthquake.
Translated from Arabic by C.J. Collins
Multilingual
Fragile States: Artwork from freeDimensional
By freeDimensional
A visual exploration of the physical and psychological experiences of persecution and forced displacement.
Multimedia
Autumn Here is Magical and Vast
By Golan Haji
Our dreams remember our dreams.
Translated from Arabic by Stephen Watts
Multilingual
Stories from “The Hedgehog”
By Zakariya Tamer
I asked my best friend, the black stone wall, about the latest news in our house.
Translated from Arabic by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
Blackness
By Lukman Derky
They extract tears from our mothers’ dried eyes.
Translated from Arabic by Ali Al-Baghdadi
In the Doorway of My Friend’s House
By Abdelkader al-Hosni
Come, I’ll show you two silences in the doorway.
Translated from Arabic by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
A Note on Syrian Poetry Today
By Golan Haji
What is it like to be Syrian today?
A Conversation with Rafik Schami
By Nadia Midani
Syria was the first Arab republic to pass on power by inheritance.
Translated from German by Anthea Bell
Multilingual
The Fountain
By Aïcha Arnaout
Rags of screams, a flight of black cloth.
Translated from French by Cécile Oumhani
Multilingual
A Scream Has No Alphabet: An Interview with Aïcha Arnaout
By Cécile Oumhani
Can we write a revolt when it is still under way?
Translated from French by the author
Multilingual
The Masseuse and Her Adulterous Husband
By Salwa Al Neimi
The first time I saw her, I failed to notice her beauty.
Translated from Arabic by Carol Perkins
Transformations in Palestinian Literature
By Faisal Darraj
Others have been obliged to live the lives of impossible citizenship, since the Arab who lives on the Land of Israel can never be the equal of an Israeli citizen.
Translated from Arabic by Michael K. Scott
My City’s Ceiling Is Too Tight
By Hala Shurouf
O my city . . . Be a little larger / so that I may see my shadow free / on the sidewalks
Translated from Arabic by Issa J. Boullata
A Lady Who Does Not Resemble Me
By Hala Shurouf
She opens the window to the friendly morning / and tempts its birds
Translated from Arabic by Issa J. Boullata
Sprouts
By Zakariya Tamer
These essays don't even deserve a zero.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
Neighing
By Faraj Bayraqdar
Stop, and weep  Not sadness over the corpse ofthe remnants of a cursed godand so not a sadnessover a bird burdened with open spaceDon’t take me-Don’t leave me-maybe, my two friends,…
Translated from Arabic by The New York Translation Collective
The First Breaths of Freedom
By Hasiba Abd al-Rahman
Now I go back to my worry again. This is my bed, so why do I feel alienated? I spent my childhood, my adolescence, my youth here . . .
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
Barada
By Nizar Qabbani
Barada, oh father of all riversOh, horse that races the daysBe, in our sad history, a prophetWho receives inspiration from his lordMillions acknowledge you as an ArabPrince . . . so pray as an imamOh…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
Damascus, What Are You Doing to Me?
By Nizar Qabbani
How do the gardens of Sham transform me?
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
Ode of Sorrow
By Faraj Bayraqdar
 The blue of depth is sadnessand the depth of blue-sadnessand a star quivering tears in this space-Language at the peak of clarityunfurls the night . . .Indeed, the moment is wounded by a dreamto…
Translated from Arabic by The New York Translation Collective
Darkness
By Ibrâhim Samûel
Everything would have passed easily if it hadn't been for the moment of sudden darkness.
Translated from Arabic by Alexa Firat
Ahem
By Ibrâhim Samûel
After this silence reigned. A silence I had not heard the likes of a day since I entered the cell.
Translated from Arabic by Alexa Firat
Fatima
By Haifa` Bitar
Begging is the profession of humiliation and degradation, but Fatima possessed a great sense of dignity and self-worth.
Translated from Arabic by Taline Voskeritchian & Tania Tamari Nasir
The Lanterns of Seville
By Abd el-Salam al-Ujayli
It reminds me of the past, of the time when I too came looking for the world of my ancestors.
Translated from Arabic by Taline Voskeritchian & Tania Tamari Nasir
Cooing
By Faraj Bayraqdar
Your cooing wears me out at night—                    so wear me out.Like wine in the odes, you go on cooingand leave me what moves horses   …
Translated from Arabic by The New York Translation Collective
Groans
By Faraj Bayraqdar
1Here I am you aloneIn this mad, gapingHellHere I am you alone and death altogetherWith its predators and its seers and the informersPerhaps I am arriving atThe limit of my possibilitiesFor you to arrive…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
An Alphabetical Formation
By Faraj Bayraqdar
Alif You’re not beginning . . .It’s an eternity, you know . . .I mean, the ever-after, you knowNo matter, then.Raise your cavalryBut don’t set out for the horizon,Or the sea . .…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
The Other Body / The Other Home
By Adonis
Migration is another name for exile made gentler by the alphabet.
Translated from Arabic by Ammiel Alcalay & Kamal Boullata