Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweeneys. Aftershocks was released in December 2024, just days after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria and the country's political prisons began to crack open. The collection brings together work by sixteen Syrian authors who write from diasporic and refugee experience, as well as from inside Syria. We discuss these key Syrian literary voices and how they and others are meeting this moment.

Show notes:

Get the Aftershocks anthology from McSweeney’s at store.mcsweeneys.net.

Malek’s 2017 book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, is available from Bold Type Books.

Read Malek’s reflections on the death of her father, “‘He Didn’t Want to Lie in a Grave That Couldn’t Be Visited” and her recent “What Did the World Learn From Syria?” in the New York Times.

Read a short conversation with Aftershocks contributor Rawaa Sonbol, “On Being a Writer in Syria Today” and her short story “The Noose Boy,” both at ArabLit.

We mention the late Syrian writers Khaled Khalifa and Saadallah Wannous. 

The photo of Alia Malek in Damascus in January 2025 is by Sabir Hasko. 

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