A literary tour of Syria illuminates the dark side of religion and politics that lurks behind the current crisis, as well as the fearlessness of ordinary people

The best books on Syria: start your reading here

The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami, translated by Anthea Bell

This monumental novel of forbidden love is an opulent, intricately assembled mosaic of stories. With its myriad digressions and vast array of characters, it isn’t always an easy read – but persistence is richly rewarded.

At its heart is the Romeo and Juliet-like romance between Farid Mushtak and Rana Shahid, whose Christian clans – one Catholic, the other Greek Orthodox – have been engaged in a blood feud over generations. Originally from the mountain village of Mala, the rival families later take their enmity to Damascus, which is vividly – and lovingly – portrayed.

The compelling tale of the star-crossed couple straddles love, lust, betrayal and revenge, while laying bare the sins of a male-dominated society. It sweeps through much of Syria’s turbulent 20th-century history as the country endures French occupation, military coups, union with Egypt and war with Israel.

Schami illuminates the dark side not just of love, but also of religion and politics. The latter, frequently blighted by violence and repression, causes Farid to pay dearly for his radical affiliations.

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“Knowledge is a lock,” says one character, “and the key to it is a question, but we’re not allowed to ask questions in this country.”

The author, who fled Syria in 1970 and now lives in Germany, says the catalyst for the novel was witnessing an “honour killing” on the streets of Damascus in 1962.

In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa, translated by Leri Price

Khalifa’s multi-layered novel explores the rise of religious extremism in Syria from a female perspective. It is set in the early 1980s, during the bloody struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the ostensibly secular regime of Hafez al-Assad (President Bashar’s father), in which thousands died.

The unnamed narrator, a young girl growing up in her grandparents’ house in Aleppo with her three aunts, finds her cloistered existence encroached upon by the tumultuous events taking place in the country.

Under the influence of an uncle, she becomes increasingly conservative and religious, finally embracing fanaticism and declaring herself a mujahida, a Muslim warrior. She becomes enthused by sectarian animosity, believing “we need hatred to give our lives meaning”.

As the conflict escalates, and “bodies on both sides fall like ripened berries”, family members are caught up in the battle and the ferocious repression that follows. She is eventually jailed and tortured for her links to the Islamists. During her long, harsh spell in prison she realises “hatred [is] worthy of praise as it lives within us exactly as love does”.

That hatred has echoes in the country’s brutal civil war today.

Khalifa’s book was banned in Syria. Despite his run-ins with the government, the author – also a well-known screenwriter – continues to live in Damascus.

Burning Country meshes first-hand testimonies with lucid analysis to chronicle the 2011 Syrian revolution from the grassroots up. It is a people’s history, giving voice to the ordinary citizens who defied the Assad “realm of fear”.

The early chapters provide historical context, charting how the minority Shia Alawite sect – to which the Assad family belongs – went from society’s margins to its mainstream, seizing power in the 1960s. Hafez al-Assad’s dictatorship presented a facade of socialism and secularism behind which lurked crony capitalism and sectarianism.

Bashar’s takeover after his father’s death in 2000 brought hopes of reform, which remained unfulfilled. When peaceful protesters took to the streets in 2011, the regime’s response was savage. After that “baptism of horror”, the revolt became fiercer. It militarised, split into factions, and an increasing number of the fighters were Islamist.

In the denouement that followed, the country became the site “of proxy wars, of Sunni-Shia rivalries, of foreign interventions”. And it brought the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war.

The authors lament the international community’s failure to support the moderate opposition movements and to prevent the country’s fragmentation and mutilation.

Intelligent, indignant and hugely empathetic, Burning Country tells us a lot of what we need to know about Syria.

Yasmin-Kassab and Al-Shami are British-Syrians, the former a commentator and novelist, the latter an activist.