A deeply personal review of The Book of Damascus explores the city's hidden lives, enduring traumas and complex identities through fiction, revealing a Damascus beyond the streets and familiar sights.
26 October 2026
I must admit I am writing this book review of The Book of Damascus (Comma Press) as if it were, in the words of its editor, Zaher Omareen, “a complex love affair.” I don’t know why, but ever since I laid eyes on the city, and I have lived in many of the Middle East’s great cities, I have been in love with it. Maybe it was its striking ladies that made an impression on me 20 years ago or its holy men, but my life has revolved around the city ever since. I got married there, my firstborn was conceived there and I named my daughter after its flowers. My first published short stories were born there, and it is the city that made me into a writer. But I also experienced its darkness, having been called by the mukhabarat for interrogation plenty of times.
“My journalistic career, too, was built on the blood of its people.”
My journalistic career, too, was built on the blood of its people. Every time I walk its streets, I feel somehow connected to its ancient past and present at the same moment. While my own city, London, has told me on many occasions that I should go back to where I came from, though my family has been there for over 100 years, Damascus hasn’t done that whether during Assad’s time or presently. In many ways, as Omareen has rightly identified, one could be a child of Damascus without having to relinquish one’s identity, and so it is that you have streets named after all sorts of immigrants.
But perhaps this will always be my state, that of an outsider. There are aspects of this city that I would like to see and know more about. The stories in this collection certainly help me to see that. The truth is, the Damascus that I have seen is not necessarily the Damascus experienced by those who have lived under the weight of its political and social history. Fiction allows me to see that side.
“The truth is, the Damascus that I have seen is not necessarily the Damascus experienced by those who have lived under the weight of its political and social history. Fiction allows me to see that side.”
The Book of Damascus opens with a preface written by the late Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa, who writes about the misery of living in Damascus before the collapse. “I find myself observing the never-ending queues for basic necessities like bread or fuel.” That picture of misery is vividly imprinted in my mind. I have felt the bitter winter, huddling in thick felt against the freezing cold, scrambling for electricity and diesel, knowing full well that my predicament was nothing like the misery written on the faces of Syrians flogging bread carried on their heads. Émile Zola would have a field day writing about those outside the state bakery. Pain, humiliation and sadness are the themes of this book, but how can I blame Omareen for choosing stories that are filled with trauma.
Read more: What Syria’s revolution can teach the world about democracy
Particularly poignant for me was the story “Butterflies in the Sky of Damascus” by Salwa Zakzak, the story of the little girls who sift through the rubbish of Damascus and of the lives they lived. Salwa gives these protagonists or scavengers a life, a personality and above all a name. But that name is suddenly taken away at the end by a news story which reports that the children were killed and swallowed up by a landfill, their names taken away to protect their dignity. And the author then cuts to the description that the city would awaken “just as it had done for the past ten years, slowly and in despair, like someone waking from a long nightmare.” This story moved me, and every time I go past a man or woman sifting through those green containers overflowing with rubbish, I can’t help but think of Zakzak’s story.
So many of the stories deal with unprocessed trauma as if the reader is expected to just accept it as normal. You see it in “Abu Hajal and the Magic Lamp” by Aboud Saeed, in which Abu Hajal ends up in Adra prison on a drug charge, while his poet brother, Khalil, makes countless visits to see the lawyer and the girl he’s fallen in love with. His descriptions are vivid and reveal slowly that those love stories that one reads about in Arabic literature boil down to cold calculation.
“What Only Chickens and the Donkey Knows” by Omareen is about the conscription adventures of a protagonist. The story, which ends with the protagonist visiting a brothel, is about far more than mere titillation. The shadow of the 1982 Hama massacre, in which Rifaat al-Assad (Hafez’s brother) played a central role, and the humiliation of conscription are the themes of this story. Omareen captures the callousness of those officers who turned so many ordinary men into fighters during the revolution. I met many fighters who had defected because of the humiliation experienced during conscription; it was not that they didn’t want to serve their country, but that conscription was about breaking the spirit. That is how I read the story. Omareen’s story is a tragedy more than anything else.
Rawaa Sonbol shows in “Storyteller for Our Times” how that humiliation and subjugation manifest themselves. It starts with the simple act of the protagonist Abu al-Noor trying to raise money to supplement his income by reviving the tradition of storytelling. The simple act leads to his imprisonment because he lacks the right paperwork. He goes on to oppress his wife and, in the end, becomes an informant. That is how tyranny ensnared ordinary people. That is how tyranny afflicts the people, and I would argue that the legacy of the past remains to this day. To this day, the name Abu Hyder, the man who interrogated me, remains in my psyche. The files, the questions, the knocks on the door—all of it is vivid in my memory. Even in London, when someone knocks on my door in the morning, it brings back memories of the mukhabarat. Now imagine how Syrians were afflicted by it.
We forget that the politesse that we see on its streets is not merely due to the refinement and manners of centuries of accumulated culture and civilization, but it is also a form of protection. When you don’t know who is mukhabarat and who is not, it is best to stay polite.
“When you don’t know who is mukhabarat and who is not, it is best to stay polite.”
Some stories felt particularly vivid given that I live in the city. “The Curse of Eid Eve” by Fares al-Zahaby about corruption in Rukn al-Din is something that could have been told to me by one of my friends as he smoked an arghile. And some stories didn’t resonate with me, notably Alaa Rashidi’s “Marvellous Music Memory,” but overall, most stories have shown me a side of Damascus that helped to deepen my understanding.
With the availability of social media and film, we can all get to know Damascus. But there are things you can’t see or feel in the pictures. The Book of Damascus shows you precisely that and brings to the fore those aspects that are often unseen in the life of the city.
Apart from the odd typo, The Book of Damascus should have been bigger and included many more stories. The Book of Damascus is part of a series that includes Cairo, Khartoum, Gaza and other cities. I hope Comma Press will publish a book on Aleppo too!
