بعيداً عن دمشق

Omar Youssef Souleimane’s Away from Damascus is a meditation on war and exile that is deepened by distance and the hindsight it allows in relating this painful experience. Indeed, Away from Damascus offers a timeless reflection on war, the ensuing condition of exile, and their paradoxically devastating and enlightening effects. These poems relate the experience of living in a foreign country as a refugee, away from one's family and social milieu; these poems are at once visceral and philosophical, immediate and poetic, vulnerable and meditative.

Souleimane is no stranger to life in exile. As a child he lived in Saudi Arabia, where he endured marginalization in Saudi society. Having experienced the exclusionary practices of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, Souleimane developed a strong animosity toward religious extremism, a force that has also been playing a significant role in the Syrian war. Hence, he has acquired a unique perspective, equally detached from each of the fighting sides in the Syrian war, which has enabled him, as a journalist, to offer a counter-narrative to the dominant accounts of this war. The value of his poetry, however, is not limited to his distinct viewpoint. His poems are a testament to a remarkable creative capacity, nurtured by the years he has spent in exile.

The eighty-five poems of Away from Damascus relate the experience of war and exile; how a war interrupts one’s dreams, and how it severs their relation to their surroundings. It is undeniable that exile offers the war survivor the opportunity to renew their ties to the world through a new beginning, but this beginning is marred by challenges, painful memories, and an uncertain future. In these times of widespread violence and refugee crises, I have tried to bring to the Anglophone reader the immediacy of the condition of exile by translating Souleimane’s gripping poems.