Maha Hassan
Maha Hassan (Arabic: مها حسن; born in Aleppo, Syria) is a Syrian-Kurdish journalist and novelist. A native Kurdish speaker, she writes in Arabic. In 2000, she was banned from publishing in Syria for her "morally condemnable" writing, and since August 2004, she has been living in exile in Paris.
Life and career[edit]
After graduating from secondary school, Hassan acquired a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Aleppo. In some of her works, she has fictionally treated taboos of Arab societies, such as abortions and honour killings, as in her novel Daughters of the Wilderness.[1][2]
In 2005, she was awarded a Hellman/Hammett grant for persecuted writers by Human Rights Watch. In 2007–2008, Hassan lived for a year at the invitation of Amsterdam Vluchtstad in the renovated apartment of Anne Frank and her family at the Amsterdam Merwedeplein.[2]
Hassan's novels Habl suri (Umbilical Cord, 2011) and al-Rawiyat (The Novels, 2014) and were longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.[3][4] In 2021, her novel The Neighbourhood of Wonder was shortlisted for the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.[5]
A 2022 literary study investigated the "concept of home" in Hassan's Drums of Love and Ghassan Jubbaʿi's Qahwat Al-General as examples of contemporary Syrian literature following the beginning of 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."[6]
Selected works[edit]
- The Infinite: Biography of the Other
- The Picture on the Cover
- Hymns of Nothingness
- The Tunnel of Existence
- Daughters of the Wilderness
- Habl suri (Umbilical Cord), 2011
- al-Rawiyat (The Novels), 2014
- Metro Halab (Aleppo Subway), 2017
- Amat sabahan ayatuha al-harb (Good Morning, War! ), 2017
- The Neighbourhood of Wonder
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "Syria: Interview with outspoken writer, Maha Hassan". ww.irinnews.org/. 2005-08-15. Archived from the original on 2012-07-16.
- ^ a b "الكاتبة السورية مها حسن: منحتُ آن فرانك عينيّ لترى بهما فلسطين | القدس العربي" [Syrian writer Maha Hassan: I gave Anne Frank my eyes to see Palestine with them]. Al Quds al-Araby (in Arabic). 2021-03-02. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
- ^ "Profile in IPAF website". Archived from the original on 2011-08-30. Retrieved 2011-12-20.
- ^ "New novel on war by Syrian novelist Maha Hassan". nasher-news.com. 10 July 2017.
- ^ "The Naguib Mahfouz Medal 2021 Shortlist". AUCPress. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
- ^ Natour, Manal Al (2022-01-02). "Home, identity, and place in Syrian literature: Maha Hassan's Drums of Love and Ghassan Jubbaʿi's Qahwat Al-General". Contemporary Levant. 7 (1): 66–80. doi:10.1080/20581831.2022.2058717. ISSN 2058-1831.
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