Books from Syria
42 popular syrian books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Asia Challenge" were written by authors from Syria.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
1.
A Sky So Close to Us : A novel by Shahla Ujayli EN
Description:
A multigenerational tale of love, loss, exile, and rebirth, shortlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. As children sleeping on the rooftop of their ancestral family home in Raqqa on warm summer nights, Joumane and her sisters imagine the sky is so close they can almost touch it. Years later, Joumane lives as an expatriate in Jordan, working for a humanitarian agency, while her sisters remain trapped in war-torn Syria. Living alone as she fights her own battle with cancer, she contemplates the closeness of the same sky, despite the sharply delineated borders that now separ... continue
2.
A Woman in the Crossfire : Diaries of the Syrian Revolution by Samar Yazbek EN
Description:
A well-known novelist and journalist from the coastal city of Jableh, Samar Yazbek witnessed the beginning four months of the uprising first-hand and actively participated in a variety of public actions and budding social movements. Throughout this period she kept a diary of personal reflections on, and observations of, this historic time. Because of the outspoken views she published in print and online, Yazbek quickly attracted the attention and fury of the regime, vicious rumours started to spread about her disloyalty to the homeland and the Alawite community to which she belongs. The lyrica... continue
3.
Adonis : Selected Poems by Adūnīs EN
Description:
"Frontispiece: Poem and calligraphy by Adonis, XXXX. Translated by Bassam Frangieh" --T.p. verso.
4.
Butterfly : From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope and Triumph by Yusra Mardini EN
Description:
"Being a refugee is not a choice. Our choice is to die at home or risk death trying to escape." - Yusra MardiniYusra Mardini fled her native Syria to the Turkish coast in 2015 and boarded a small dinghy full of refugees bound for Greece. When the small and overcrowded boat's engine cut out, it began to sink. Yusra, her sister and two others took to the water, pushing the boat for three and a half hours in open water until they eventually landed on Lesbos, saving the lives of the passengers aboard. This is the story of that remarkable woman, whose journey started in a war-torn suburb of Damascu... continue
6.
Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir by Danny Ramadan EN
Description:
FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNER GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 EVERGREEN AWARD AN AUDIBLE BEST BOOK OF 2024 A queer Syrian refugee reckons with a life spent out of place. “Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to. Starting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes ... continue
7.
Da waren Tage : Roman by Luna Ali DE
Description:
Aras nimmt die syrische Revolution zunächst aus der Entfernung wahr, geboren in Aleppo, aufgewachsen in Deutschland, ist er 2011 im ersten Semester seines Jurastudiums. Doch mit der Entgrenzung der Gewalt in Syrien wird der Konflikt mehr und mehr zum Teil seines Alltags. Im Hörsaal und in der Ausländerbehörde, beim Praktikum in Jordanien oder als Gast einer politischen Talkshow erlebt er den Jahrestag der Revolution jedes Jahr aufs Neue als Wechselspiel zwischen Realität und Imagination.
In ihrem eindrucksvollen Debütroman erzählt Luna Ali, wie sich die Erei... continue
8.
Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami EN
Description:
Rafik Schami's award-winning novel. In the classical Arab tradition of tale-telling, here is a magical book that celebrates the power of storytelling, delightfully transformed for modern sensibilities by an award-winning author. The time is present-day Damascus, and Salim the coachman, the city's most famous storyteller, is mysteriously struck dumb. To break the spell, seven friends gather for seven nights to present Salim with seven wondrous "gifts"—seven stories of their own design. Upon this enchanting frame of tales told in the fragrant Arabian night, the words of the past grow fainter, as... continue
9.
Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa EN
Description:
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE A dogged, absurd quest through the nightmare of the Syrian civil war Khaled Khalifa’s Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria’s ongoing and catastrophic civil war: a tale of three ordinary people facing down the stuff of nightmares armed with little more than simple determination. Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya... continue