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Syrian literature is modern literature written in Arabic by writers from Syria since the independence of the Syrian Arab Republic in 1946. It is part of the historically and geographically wider Arabic literature. Literary written or oral works by Syrian authors in the historical region of Syria since the Umayyad era are considered general Arabic literature.
In its historical development since the beginnings of compilations of the Quran in the 7th century and later written records, the Arabic language has been considered a geographically comprehensive, standardized written language due to the religious or literary works written in classical Arabic. This sometimes differs considerably from the individual regionally spoken variants, such as Syrian, Egyptian or Moroccan spoken forms of Arabic.
In Arabic, bilad ash-sham refers to the region of the eastern Mediterranean known in Europe as the Levant. The individual areas of this region have close historical, geographical and cultural similarities, although during the Ottoman Empire there were only administrative divisions, notwithstanding active regional cultural exchange, especially between the larger cities. The current states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian autonomous areas only came into being in the mid-20th century. Therefore, Syrian literature has since been referred to by literary scholarship as the national literature from the Syrian Arab Republic, as well as the works written in Arabic by Syrian writers in the diaspora. This literature has been influenced by the country's political history, the literature of other Arabic-speaking countries and, especially in its early days, by French literature.
Apart from literary genres such as Arabic poetry, fiction and theatrical works, contemporary Syrian literature also encompasses literature for children and young readers, as well as science fiction, including utopian and dystopian fiction.
Under Ottoman rule, literary production was subjected to censorship. In the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, aspiring Syrian writers often chose emigration, moving primarily to Egypt—where they contributed to al-Nahda, the renaissance of Arabic literature—and to the United States, developing Syrian literature from abroad.
In 1948, the partitioning of neighbouring Palestine and the establishment of Israel brought about a new turning point in Syrian writing. Adab al-Iltizam, the "literature of political commitment", deeply marked by social realism, mostly replaced the romantic trend of the previous decades. Hanna Mina, rejecting art for art's sake and confronting the social and political issues of his time, was one of the most prominent Syrian novelists of this era. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Adab al-Naksa, the "literature of defeat", grappled with the causes of the Arab defeat.
Baath Party rule, since the 1966 coup, has brought about renewed censorship. As Hanadi Al-Samman puts it,[1]
In this context, the genre of the historical novel, spearheaded by Nabil Suleiman, Fawwaz Haddad, Khyri al-Dhahabi and Nihad Sirees, is sometimes used as a means of expressing dissent, critiquing the present through a depiction of the past. Syrian folk narrative is imbued with magical realism and is also used as a means of veiled criticism of the present. Salim Barakat, a Syrian émigré living in Sweden, is one of the leading figures of the genre.
US-American literary scholar of Syrian descent Mohja Kahf has argued that literary dissent is typically expressed through the "poetics of Syrian silence":[2]
In January 2024, the novel Suleima’s Ring by Syrian emigré in Spain Rima Bali was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the most prestigious literary award in the Arab world.[3]
Especially since the Syrian revolution and the ensuing Syrian civil war after 2011, a large number of war novels, poems and corresponding non-fiction works have been published.[4] According to literary critic Anne-Marie McManus, these "contemporary works of art can shed much-needed light on the political, social and psychological contours of an uprising." [5] Thus, Fawwaz Haddad (b. 1947) described the beginnings of the regional conflicts in his 2010 novel Soldiers of God, including the atrocities of the clashes between al-Qaeda fighters, U.S. soldiers and torture victims in Iraq.[6]
Due to political repression and the ongoing civil war, many Syrian writers have fled abroad, creating works of Syrian exile literature.[7] Among many others, these include Nihad Sirees (b. 1950)[8] and Rasha Omran (b. 1964) in Egypt, Dima Wannous (b. 1982), Ghalia Qabbani and Haitham Hussein (b. 1978) in the United Kingdom, Samar Yazbek (b. 1970) and Omar Youssef Souleimane (b. 1987) in France, as well as Ali al-Kurdi (b. 1953), Yassin al Haj-Saleh (b. 1961), Najat Abdul Samad (b. 1967), Aref Hamza (b. 1974), Osama Esber (b. 1963), Rosa Yassin Hassan (b. 1974), Liwaa Yazji (born 1977), Aboud Saeed (born 1983), Rasha Abbas (born 1984) and Widad Nabi (born 1985) in Germany. As these authors continue to write and publish their works in Arabic, they are banned in Syria. With regard to the expectations of Western publishers and readers, some authors complain that their works are often not meet with an interest primarily for literary reasons. Rather, authors are under the impression that "Orientalist" clichés will be met, for example regarding the dangers of the flight into exile or the trope of Arab societies oppressing women.[9]
Exiled in London, the writer and activist Dima Wannous published ironic stories about people in her home country under the title Dark Clouds over Damascus. In addition to her novels, Samar Yazbek also published the non-fiction book The Stolen Revolution. Travels to my devastated Syria. Liwaa Yazji's work as a writer of plays and screenplays is similarly marked by her reflections on the cruelty of the war in Syria, her situation as a writer in exile with family members in Syria who take sides against this war.[10]
A 2022 literary study investigated the loss of a place called home for Syrians. Maha Hassan’s Drums of Love and Ghassan Jubbaʿi’s Qahwat Al-General served as examples of contemporary Syrian literature following the Syrian revolution. The study posited "that in both works a real sense of home proves unattainable" and "that the unattainable sense of home depicted in the novels marks such texts as a part of the enduring legacy of the Syrian revolution and its causes."[11]
Many women writers have contributed to the development of modern Syrian and Arabic literature. The earliest works of modern literature by Syrian women writers since the late 19th century, for example the poet Maryana Marrash (1848–1919), showed tendencies of Romanticism and social realism. Since the 1950s, experimental novels and new themes dealing with social conditions, such as discrimination against women, have been published by Ulfat Idlibi (1912–2007), Widad Sakakini (1913–1991), Salma Kuzbari (1923–2006), Colette Khoury (b. 1931) and Sania Saleh (1935–1985), among others.[12] Women writers of the following generation are Ghada al-Samman, Hamida Nana (b. 1946), Marie Seurat (b. Bachi, 1949), Ibtisam Ibrahim Teresa (b. 1959), and Hayfa Baytar (b. 1960).[13] These were followed by Lina Hawyani al-Hasan (b. 1975), Maha Hassan, Rasha Abbas, Najat Abdul Samad, Rasha Omran, Ghalia Qabbani, Rosa Yaseen Hassan, Dima Wannous, Samar Yazbek and Liwaa Yazji.[14]