Rasha Omran () is a Syrian poet. She is one of the most important women Syrian poets and the author of seven poetry collections and an anthology of Syrian poetry.

Biography

Rasha Omran was born in 1964 in

Tartus Tartus ( / ALA-LC: ''Ṭarṭūs''; known in the County of Tripoli as Tortosa and also transliterated from French language, French Tartous) is a major port city on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. It is the second largest port city in Syria (af ...

, Syria, into a family of

Alawite Alawites () are an Arabs, Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate A ...

artists. She is the daughter of Syrian poet Mohammad Omran, a poet, activist, and journalist, and their home was a cultural gathering place for intellectuals and artists. As a child, she read freely in her family library and she later attended

Damascus University Damascus University () is the largest and oldest university in Syria, located in the capital Damascus, with campuses in other Syrian cities. It was founded in 1923 as the Syrian University () through the merger of the Faculty of Medicine of Dama ...

to study

Arabic literature Arabic literature ( / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is ''Adab (Islam), Adab'', which comes from a meaning of etiquett ...

. She founded the Al-Sindiyan Festival of Literature and Culture in her hometown in the late 1990s, which she directed for 16 years, and published her first poems after the death of her father. She has published seven collections of poetry and is the editor of an anthology of contemporary Syrian poetry. Since the beginning of the

Syrian revolution The Syrian revolution, also known as the Syrian Revolution of Dignity, was a series of mass protests and civilian uprisings throughout Syria – with a subsequent violent reaction by the Ba'athist regime – lasting from 15 March 2011 to 8 De ...

, she has publicly given her support for the uprising. “This is a dictatorial regime, ...How can I support a government that kills its citizens?” She has marched in protests, written about her dissent, and spoken out against Assad. Assad is "not a dictator, just a gangster boss." Omran coined the phrase, "the international silence on Syria is deafening.". Threatened along with her family by the Syrian regime, she went into exile in Cairo in 2012. In September 2012, Omran and four other Syrian women launched a

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fasting, fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are ...

outside the

Arab League The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...

's headquarters in

Tahrir Square Tahrir Square (, ; ), also known as Martyr Square, is a public town square in downtown Cairo, Egypt. The square has been the location and focus for political demonstrations. The 2011 Egyptian revolution and the resignation of President of Egypt, ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, Egypt, demanding that the

provides more support for the revolutionaries, and pressure Assad to halt the human rights abuses in Syria. She has lived in Cairo since 2012 where she continues to write and publish her poetry, as well as three weekly articles for online Arab media where she comments on political and cultural news.

Bibliography

*زوجة سرية للغياب (A secret wife of absence). Poems. Al Mutawassit, Milan 2020 *التي سكنت البيت قبلي (She who dwelt in the house before me). Poems. Al Mutawassit, Milan 2016 *بانوراما الموت والوحشة (Panorama of death and solitude). Poems. Dar Non 2014 *معطف أحمر فارغ (A red and empty coat). Poems. Syrian Culture Ministry 2009 *ظلك الممتد في أقصى حنيني (Your Shadow, Cast in my Utter Yearning). Poems. Al Tanweer 2003 *كأن منفاي جسدي (As though my Exile my Body). Poems. Dar Arwad 1999 *وجع له شكل الحياة (Pain in the Form of Life). Poems. Dar Arwad 1997 *أنطولوجيا الشعر السوري (Anthologie de la poésie syrienne 1980-2008) الأمانة العامة لإحتفالية دمشق عاصمة الثقافة العربية, Damas 2008

Translations

English

*''3 Poems from A Secret Wife of Absence'' translation Phoebe Carter *''Other Poems from A Secret Wife of Absence'' translation Phoebe Carter *''Defy the Silence'' translation Kim Echlin et Abdelrehim Youssef *''If I Were a Cat'' Rasha Omran’s Poetry in Three Languages *''When longing tormented me''When longing tormente
me
/ref> translation Camilo Gomez-Rivas

References

External links