This is a conversation with Asser Khattab, a Syrian writer who has reported on Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq for various international news outlets. We spoke about his essay for New Lines Magazine, “why I stopped writing about Syria.” This is episode 97 of The Fire These Times podcast.
Topics Discussed:
- How Asser started writing about Syria
- Pigeonholing as Arab journalists
- Why Asser stopped writing about Syria
- Us leaving Lebanon at the same time
- Picturing safe spaces
- What is ‘normal’?
- The role of Twitter in journalism
- The dangers of living in Lebanon as an undocumented Syrian
- Survivor’s guilt and imposter’s syndrome
Resources Mentioned:
- A look at the Lebanon uprising through its chants
- Syrian melancholy in Lebanon’s revolution
- Newlines Podcast
- That Cairo Concert, Mental Health and Growing Up Queer in Lebanon (With Hamed Sinno)
- ‘Revolution everywhere’: A conversation between Hong Kong and Lebanese protesters
- Hong Kong’s Existential Crisis (with JP)
- Syrian Prison Literature and the Poetics of Human Rights (with Shareah Taleghani)
- Syria, Journalism and the Cost of Indifference
- In the End, It Was All About Love (with Musa Okwonga)
Recommended Books:
- Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
- God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou
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