The French version of me
14 April 2022
I walk through the city with a surprising sense of belonging, and I see copies of my novel in the storefronts. My eyes catch the title, the “New Release,” my...
In drawings: Exile and alienation in Germany
19 October 2021
"This type of intimacy and comfort with which we used to meet friends has been lost by Syrians in exile, replaced with a pathological nostalgia. Now we don't know what...
Rateb Shabo: ‘Politics disappears amid violence’
17 September 2021
“Syria has been exiled. All Syrians have become strangers to their homeland. Or, perhaps, exile itself has become their homeland.”
Questioning ‘exile’
23 July 2021
In my mind and memories, exile was a remote and strange place. It was where the persecuted were forced to seek safety from arrest or death, where they were embattled...
Thoughts on exile in Germany
17 July 2021
We aren’t really over there, and we aren’t here either, struggling to find any satisfactory formula to solve the problem of our roots. We don’t understand what to do with...
Walking a tightrope: Syrian theater in Germany
21 June 2021
Asylum ceased to be a mere legal status for Syrians, as it turned into an identity with special features and aspects that went beyond a legal denomination. It had meanings...
