We look at new writing from Syria and about the experiences of Syrian refugees, including Ramy Al-Asheq’s Ever Since I Did Not Die, a book he categorizes not as poetry or prose but as “pieces of my body, haphazardly brought together in a paper bag.”

Show Notes

Ramy Al-Asheq’s Ever Since I Did Not Die was translated by Isis Nusair and edited by Levi Thompson.

Samar Yazbek’s Planet of Clay was translated by Leri Price and is on the shortlist for this year’s National Book Award, in the Translation category.

Rabih Alameddine’s The Wrong End of the Telescope follows a Lebanese-American trans woman’s journey to the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece.

Haya Saleh’s Wild Poppies won the 2020 Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature in the YA category and follows two young Syrian boys, Omar and Sufyan, as they struggle to come-of-age during wartime.

We finished on a reading of an untitled poem by Ramy Al-Asheq, published in Transference, translated by Levi Thompson.