Fadi Azzam’s Sarmada tells the layered stories of a village in southern Syria, where memory, legend, desire, violence, and political dread move through generations. The novel draws on magical realism and Arabic storytelling traditions to portray a place haunted by its past and by the pressures of dictatorship and exile.
Reviews
“[…] the gem of the Arabic literature of dissent.” — The New Yorker (Full review)
“Brimful of magic, Sarmada is a book to be swallowed in rapturous gulps. It’s beautifully written and, save the rare plunge into cliché, beautifully translated by Adam Talib.” — The Independent (Interlink)
“Sarmada by Fadi Azzam is a unique and audacious book by pretty much any measure: drawing heavily on the both Scheherazadian tradition of stories within stories, and elements of magical realism” — Eleutherophobia (Full review)