Writing, War, and the Will to Rebuild: A Conversation with Siwar Al Assad

Over the years, I’ve received countless messages, some sent quietly by email, others left as public comments on social media. Readers from all over the world have written to me, asking questions that go far beyond the pages of my novels. “Why do you write about war?” “How much of Guard Thy Heart is your story?” “What keeps you going after witnessing so much loss?” These questions, heartfelt and often raw, have surprised me, not because they were asked, but because so many people were seeking the same truths.

I never expected this kind of response. When I first started writing, I simply hoped my stories would carry something of Syria’s soul into the world. But the dialogue that’s emerged has become just as meaningful to me as the work itself.

So I decided to share something a little different. Consider this my own personal interview. Not the polished version for media or institutions, but the one I would give if we were sitting across from each other, coffee in hand, talking about life, literature, and why, even after all that’s happened, I still believe in words.

Q: Let’s begin with the obvious- why do you write?

Siwar: I don’t write to escape. I write to understand. When you come from a country like Syria, where memory and politics are tightly woven, you inherit questions before you inherit answers. Writing became my way of sorting through that. A form of personal justice.

I’ve always believed that the act of writing, especially in the shadow of loss, is not about forgetting what happened. It’s about preserving the human behind the headline. War erases nuance. Fiction, at its best, restores it.

On War and the Writer’s Role in Remembering

Q: You’ve lived through Syria’s transformations from the inside and the outside. How does war shape your writing?

Siwar: War strips things down to the essentials- love, survival, dignity. In Guard Thy Heart, the protagonist Paul carries a transplanted heart, but really, it’s about emotional scarring. His internal fractures mirror the external world.

As someone who left Syria at a young age but never really left emotionally, I’ve always felt this tug. How do you write truthfully when your country is changing faster than you can process? War doesn’t just destroy homes; it scrambles identity. That confusion appears in my characters constantly. They are always looking for something, closure, clarity, meaning.

Q: So many of your novels blend personal emotion with historical or political backdrops. Is that intentional?

Siwar: Very much so. I think fiction has a responsibility to show the private impact of public trauma. We can read statistics about refugees or conflicts, but until you meet someone, through a book, perhaps, who reminds you of your brother or friend, it’s abstract.

Take Palmyre pour toujours. That book was born out of heartbreak. I had seen Palmyra as a child, majestic and silent. Years later, when it was desecrated by war, I knew I had to write it back into existence. That’s what literature can do. It can rebuild, at least symbolically, what bombs tried to erase.

On Language, Exile, and Writing Across Borders

Q: You write in both French and English. How does language influence your storytelling?

Siwar: Language holds memory. French, for me, was the language of my academic life, of diplomacy and structure. English is where I found emotional clarity. I write in both because exile taught me to belong nowhere and everywhere at once.

And yet, despite the languages, the soul of my writing is Syrian. You can feel it in the cadence, in the grief that hides beneath the sentences. It’s there in the pauses, in the unspoken. Exile teaches you to read between the lines, and I suppose I ask my readers to do the same.

Q: Many of your books deal with memory, either personal or cultural. Is that deliberate?

Siwar: Absolutely. One of the most dangerous things about post-conflict societies is collective amnesia. After a while, even suffering becomes blurred. I write because I don’t want people to forget.

Whether it’s the opulence of 1920s Paris in Le temps d’une saison or the devastation of war-torn Palmyra, I try to give readers both beauty and discomfort. Because both are part of the truth. And if we forget what hurt us, we risk repeating it.

Literature as Cultural Resistance

Q: What role do you think literature plays in the broader Syrian diaspora?

Siwar: It’s everything. For many exiled Syrians, literature is the only way to stay connected. We’ve lost cities, schools, and traditions. But we haven’t lost language. And as long as we write, we exist.

Literature is also resistance. It says: I will not let my country be defined only by rubble. I will not let the headlines write my narrative. Through fiction, we protect nuance. And for a culture like Syria’s, so old, so rich, so often misunderstood, that nuance is sacred.

Closing Thoughts: What Writing Means in a Fractured World

Q: What would you tell young writers from Syria, or any post-conflict society, who want to write?

Siwar: Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait to heal fully before you begin. The wound is part of the page. Your story matters, even if it doesn’t fit the official narrative. Especially then.

Write because someone else is silent. Write because someone else can’t. And if you’re lucky, your words won’t just comfort you, they’ll echo.