1970 Hafez al-Asad Syria

• Khālid Khalīfah (1963 – 2023, Syria) – La Sakākīn fī Maṭābikh Hadhahi al-Madīnah (2013, English trans. No Knives in the Kitchens of This City, 2016) and Madīḥ lil-Karāhiyyah (2006, English trans. In Praise of Hatred, 2012).

La Sakākīn fī Maṭābikh hathahi al-Madīnah portrays the life of an abandoned Syrian mother and her children. The narrator is the youngest of these four and describes the downfall of the family that is symbolic for changing Aleppo between 1960 and 2005, under years of an undefined dictatorial regime. Each family member deals differently with the Syrian reality: such as the rebellious Sawsān who starts working as an informant for the regime after the death of her disabled sister Suʿād and the increasing dementia of her mother, or Rashīd the talented musician, whose belief in Islam radicalizes and who travels to Iraq to fight Americans (reference). This novel was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2013 (also in C: Cities: Syria: Aleppo).

Madīḥ lil-Karāhiyyah takes place in the 1980s, when Syrian society was caught up in sectarian conflict between the Hafez al-Asad regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. Māyā, a young aristocratic Sunni woman from Aleppo, becomes affiliated with the Brotherhood, something that eventually gets her imprisoned. In her female-only prison cell however, she is confronted with hatred and the collapse of her consciousness, leading to her rejection of extremism (reference). The English translation does not include the final section of the original, which describes Māyā’s re-assimilation into society through Sufi-inspired and humanistic Islamic practices (reference)(also in I: Ideologies and Political Movements: Terrorism: (De) Radicalization).