Dima Wannous

Dima Wannous ( Arabic ديمة ونوس; * 1982 in Damascus ) is a Syrian writer , political activist and translator for French and Arabic literature. She is the daughter of the well-known Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous, who died in 1997 .

Life

Dima Wannous studied literature and Romance studies (French literature) at the University of Damascus and the humanities faculty of the University of Paris IV Sorbonne (today Sorbonne Université ). She also studied translation at the University of Lyon .

Later, she was in Beirut as a writer and columnist working for several Arabic-language media, including international, in London published daily newspaper Al-Hayat and the Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir. With the beginning of the protest movement in Syria in 2011, which ended in an armed uprising , she worked for the opposition broadcaster “Orient News” and moderated a. a. Programs on cultural topics.

After several years in Beirut, she emigrated to London, where she lives today. In an interview with the daily newspaper taz , she cited security concerns as reasons for moving . a. because of the strong presence of Hezbollah , allied with Bashar al-Assad , on the other hand, family reasons. She has one son and is married to Ibrahim Hamidi , a journalist and political correspondent for the international Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat .

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In 2007 a collection of short stories was published, which was later (2014) published in German translation under the title “Dark Clouds over Damascus”. Her first novel was published in 2008 under the title "Al Kursi" (The Chair). In the same year Dima Wannous was named one of the 40 most talented young authors in the Arab world .

In 2018 her novel “Al-Khayifun” was published in Germany under the title “Die Verreckstierter”. The writer Volker Kaminski praised Wannous' narrative style as “sober and often painfully precise when it comes to detailed descriptions of human suffering.” Seldom has a novel “spoken so clearly of sheer despair and the incurable division of society so emphatically at such a high literary level made like this piercingly disturbing text ”.

Controversy

In an article for the website of the broadcaster Orient News, Wannous criticized the double standards of international politics in the face of the assassination of the editors of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015. In the comment entitled "I am the Syrian Charlie" she threw that before the heads of state united in a show of solidarity in Paris to show solidarity with the victims of terror of jihadist groups , but not with those of the Syrian regime.

In 2016 it sparked a controversy when, on Orient News, she reported the fixation of the Arab public on the subject of the expulsion of the Palestinians ( Al-Nakba ) as a result of the Middle East wars of 1948 and 1967 and the support of the Palestinian leaders for the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein criticized. The number of displaced Syrians is higher than the number of displaced Palestinians, but the Arab solidarity for the victims of the Syrian regime is small.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dima Wannous - international literature festival berlin. Retrieved August 11, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Isabella Caldart: Writer about her homeland Syria: “I experienced it myself” . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 22, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed on August 11, 2020]).
3. ↑ Dima Wannous - international literature festival berlin. Retrieved August 11, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Dima Wannous | International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Retrieved August 11, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Moritz tree Stieger: Lost homeland. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved August 11, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Dima Wannous: "The Afraid": Writing to Survive - Qantara.de. Retrieved August 11, 2020 . 
7. ^ I am the Syrian Charlie. In: The Syrian Observer. January 21, 2015, accessed August 11, 2020 . 
8. ^ Arab Support for Palestinians Frays. In: Commentary Magazine. August 26, 2016, Retrieved August 11, 2020 (American English).