"The Return to the Mountains." by Kholoud Charaf in Polish translation 25.07.2020
"The Return to the Mountains. A Diary in the Shadow of War" by Kholoud Charaf appeared in Polish translation in the publishing series of the Villa Decius Institute for Culture.
Kholoud Charaf "Return to the Mountains. A Journal in the Shadow of War",
translated by Prof. Mark Dziekan (IKWD, 2020)
In 2019, the book "Return to the Mountains. A Journal in the Shadow of War" received the Moroccan Ibn Battuta Award in travel prose.
"Return to the Mountains" is a poetic prose that combines elements of a journal, travel literature and a free-flowing philosophical reflection. When the author returns to her home town after long years, the images from her childhood come back to life, and individual memory begins to intertwine with the history of the Middle East, preserved not only in historical monuments but also in the richness of ancient rituals and the harsh, volcanic landscape. Since the laws of human dignity no longer seem to apply in a war-torn world, the only key to understanding the present turns out to be the past.
Kholoud Charaf – a poet, writer, art critic and activist coming from Al Mujaymir in southern Syria. In 2003, she graduated from the University of Damascus and obtained a diploma as a medical technician. She worked as the head of a medical unit at the women's prison in As-Suwayda and as an English teacher at the Syrian Children's Education Institute, teaching children who had no chance of formal education because of the ongoing war. She participated in the psychological support course organised by the Syrian Red Cross.
In 2016, she published her debut volume of poetry entitled "The Remains of the Butterfly", which met with critical acclaim, pointing to the originality of her poetic language and literary images, as well as the exceptional ability of the author to transform the war experience into beautiful worlds of imagination that refer to her childhood memories in her home village. Her poems were translated into English, French, Italian and Polish, and the volume "Odwrócone niebo / Reversed Sky" was published in a bilingual (Polish-English) edition by the Znak publishing house (2019). She is a scholar of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) in Kraków. In 2020, she received the prestigious Artist Protection Fund scholarship for artists persecuted in their homeland.
In 2018, Kholoud Charaf moved to Kraków as the eighth scholar of the Residential Programme of the International Cities of Refuge Network. Founded in 2005 in Norway, ICORN is dedicated to providing artists who cannot live and create freely in their own homeland due to persecution with a secure creative workplace.
Kraków joined the ICORN network in 2011 as the first city in Central Europe (called the "Gateway to the East") and has since been one of the 70 "Cities of Refuge". The Villa Decius Institute for Culture offers persecuted artists a two-year scholarship programme, enabling them to continue their work and, thanks to cooperation with Kraków's cultural institutions (including Krakow Festival Office), an opportunity to get involved in local literary life and promote the works of the scholars in Poland.
translated by Prof. Mark Dziekan (IKWD, 2020)
In 2019, the book "Return to the Mountains. A Journal in the Shadow of War" received the Moroccan Ibn Battuta Award in travel prose.
"Return to the Mountains" is a poetic prose that combines elements of a journal, travel literature and a free-flowing philosophical reflection. When the author returns to her home town after long years, the images from her childhood come back to life, and individual memory begins to intertwine with the history of the Middle East, preserved not only in historical monuments but also in the richness of ancient rituals and the harsh, volcanic landscape. Since the laws of human dignity no longer seem to apply in a war-torn world, the only key to understanding the present turns out to be the past.
Kholoud Charaf – a poet, writer, art critic and activist coming from Al Mujaymir in southern Syria. In 2003, she graduated from the University of Damascus and obtained a diploma as a medical technician. She worked as the head of a medical unit at the women's prison in As-Suwayda and as an English teacher at the Syrian Children's Education Institute, teaching children who had no chance of formal education because of the ongoing war. She participated in the psychological support course organised by the Syrian Red Cross.
In 2016, she published her debut volume of poetry entitled "The Remains of the Butterfly", which met with critical acclaim, pointing to the originality of her poetic language and literary images, as well as the exceptional ability of the author to transform the war experience into beautiful worlds of imagination that refer to her childhood memories in her home village. Her poems were translated into English, French, Italian and Polish, and the volume "Odwrócone niebo / Reversed Sky" was published in a bilingual (Polish-English) edition by the Znak publishing house (2019). She is a scholar of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) in Kraków. In 2020, she received the prestigious Artist Protection Fund scholarship for artists persecuted in their homeland.
In 2018, Kholoud Charaf moved to Kraków as the eighth scholar of the Residential Programme of the International Cities of Refuge Network. Founded in 2005 in Norway, ICORN is dedicated to providing artists who cannot live and create freely in their own homeland due to persecution with a secure creative workplace.
Kraków joined the ICORN network in 2011 as the first city in Central Europe (called the "Gateway to the East") and has since been one of the 70 "Cities of Refuge". The Villa Decius Institute for Culture offers persecuted artists a two-year scholarship programme, enabling them to continue their work and, thanks to cooperation with Kraków's cultural institutions (including Krakow Festival Office), an opportunity to get involved in local literary life and promote the works of the scholars in Poland.
