Palestinian-born in Damascus and currently residing between Berlin and Stockholm, Ghayath Almadhoun uses his poetry to expose the raw realities of losing one’s homeland, the trauma of displacement, injustice, resistance, and love. His work has been translated into nearly thirty languages, and he is one of the most prominent talents in Arabic poetry today.
In this interview for The Brussels Review, Almadhoun reflects on his personal experiences, asserting that his poetry, while often interpreted as political, is primarily a mirror of his own life and emotions. He discusses the enduring power of Arabic poetry and language, what “home” means to him now, and his journey as an immigrant poet in Germany, especially during such a turbulent time for his homeland. His forceful voice offers readers a poignant reminder of the resilience of art in times of turmoil.
The interview took place ahead of his event on October 16th at The Centre of Fine Arts, Bozar, where he will share his poetry with the Brussels audience.
Dimitra Didangelou: Many of your poems blend personal pain with collective Palestinian suffering. How do you approach the balance between personal expression and representing a broader, often politicized, experience in your poetry?
Ghayath Almadhoun: Actually, I don’t. I just write poetry. My focus is strictly on the act of writing itself: the quality of the writing, innovation in style, experimenting with how to personalize even the most public matters, and striving to innovate in a field where innovation is difficult. I don’t pay attention to issues, regardless of their importance, unless they come from personal experience and emerge in a way that is new, different, and previously untouched. For me, poetry is the ability to rewrite the obvious, where the poet reshapes language to fit his or her imagination.
From this perspective, I can say that my poems are simply a reflection of my experiences, my life, and my imagination. If you feel a mixture of personal pain and collective suffering in my poems, it’s because that’s how life is. Some people don’t get a chance to find out for one of two reasons: either because they don’t read poetry or because they don’t write poetry.
I was enchanted by how linguistic images could be conjured, enabling wild fantasies to emerge within the beauty of the Arabic language. I discovered my capacity to delicately reshape the ordinary monotony of everyday speech, transforming it into something truly extraordinary. I also enjoy writing poetry!
Dimitra Didangelou: Your poems are strongly connected to politics, but you have denied that you write political poetry. Could you tell us more about this and your starting point when you write?
Ghayath Almadhoun: There are two sides to this question. First of all, I don’t think that what I write is political poetry. This is not politics; it is my life. My life is mixed with politics—I was born a Palestinian in Syria, and I lost both countries.
I write about myself, my life, and my experiences, reflecting what I live and feel as a Palestinian, as a refugee, as an immigrant, as a Muslim, as an Arab, and as an outsider.
Take, for example, my fellow Scandinavian poets who write about nature, the darkness of winter, and depression. If we consider my poems political, we have to consider their poems political too—they reflect their experiences, and I reflect mine. The flaw seems to be in my experiences. Maybe if I had a normal life, I would have written normal poetry—if we can even use the word “normal.”
It seems that the problem, if you think there is one, is in my life, not in my poems. I consider myself an organic intellectual, as Gramsci says, and I am not detached from reality, nor do I want to be.
Secondly, everything in this world is political, related to class, gender, occupation, history, colonization, etc. But what happens, especially in the Western world, is that they purge poems of politics by rewriting and editing them over and over again to make them publishable.
Also, most poets in the West have become so professionalized that they censor their own poems as they write them. They become conscious while working on the text, and no word that touches a wound, no idea that stirs confusion, no meaning that could throw even a small stone into a stagnant pond is left.
Dimitra Didangelou: Stefan Weidner, in his review for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), compared you to Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan, saying your poetry is “a slap in the face” and that you are “the great poet of a great catastrophe.” Do you feel like this?
Ghayath Almadhoun: They are both monumental writers, and to be compared to them is an honor. While I’m flattered by the description, which I deeply appreciate, I can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility that comes with such praise.
Nelly Sachs and I both sought refuge in Sweden, fleeing dictatorship, but I feel a stronger spiritual connection to Paul Celan. The comparison of my work with these two Jewish writers is not coincidental. The intersections between us, though perhaps incomprehensible to Western culture, reveal the poetic nature of time and how lost souls can converge.
For centuries, Jews wandered through time—nomads lost on the map—and stateless Bedouins roamed the diaspora. They carried something mysterious in their hands, an enigma, a symbol I can’t fully grasp. Let’s call it an apple.
This apple, carried with them since time immemorial as they moved from place to place without a compass, became a symbol of something elusive, making them appear both mysterious and magnetic in the eyes of the world. Everything they did seemed to be touched by this enigmatic essence, giving them an attractive glow.
Then, in 1948, they settled down. They took our land—Palestine—and handed us the apple.
And here we are, since 1948, the Palestinians, holding this apple in our hands. We’ve become the new nomads, wandering through time, lost on the map, the stateless Bedouins navigating the diaspora. Now, the Palestinians appear mysterious and magnetic in the eyes of the world.
Dimitra Didangelou: Tell us more about your latest poetry collection. What is its theme?
Ghayath Almadhoun: There is no central theme to my writing. I’ve seen a lot of confusion about my poetry, and I don’t blame people for thinking I write about war. But the truth is, I write about life—about my friends, about women, about love, about sex, about death, about the intricate details of the human psyche, and about war.
I assure you that all my poems are love poems, even though they may seem like love poems in the form of nightmares. And that’s true in its own way.
I’ve been trying to write love poems all my life, and I’m still trying. I think I’ve succeeded in my own way. The love poems I write have always been different from the traditional form. My vocabulary is different, my dictionary is different, and my images and metaphors come from my memories. I draw from my own experiences. As I’ve said before, everything I write reflects my reality and my life, but my reality has always been different, and my life has never been monotonous.
Dimitra Didangelou: In your poem “We,” you write: “We are the things you have seen on your screens and in the press, and if you made an effort to fit the pieces together, like a jigsaw, you would get a clear picture of us, so clear that you would be unable to do a thing.” Could you tell us more about this poem?
Ghayath Almadhoun: When I was still in Syria, we couldn’t talk to my grandmother because there were no phone calls between Syria and Israel, and Gaza is considered Israel because it is occupied and has the same international code. When I arrived in Sweden from Syria in early September 2008, I immediately started looking for my grandmother’s cell phone number in Gaza. It turned out that she didn’t have a cell phone, but she had a house phone, and I was able to get it.
I started communicating with her, and I talked to her almost every day. Israel expelled my family from our home in the city of Ashkelon during the Nakba of 1948. Ashkelon is the only area of the Gaza Strip that was occupied in 1948, while the rest of the Gaza Strip was occupied in 1967.
My father is older than Israel—he was 6 months old when the Nakba happened. My grandfather and grandmother fled with their children to the interior of the Gaza Strip, specifically to what is now called the Khan Yunis refugee camp. My grandfather died in the camp at 33 years old, just a few kilometers from his house.
My grandmother raised the children alone, and the tent slowly turned into a house made of blocks and zinc sheets. When my father turned 18, in 1967, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel grew tenfold, from 20,000 square kilometers to 200,000 square kilometers.
The Israeli army arrested my young father and many other young men, took them on a long journey through the Sinai desert to the Suez Canal, and then threw them on the Egyptian side of the canal. My father then went from Egypt to Jordan and ended up in Syria, where he met my Syrian mother. I was born in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.
They left my grandmother alone, and she remained alone in Gaza for the rest of her life. I tried everything to get Swedish citizenship so I could visit her, but she died in 2012 before I could get a Swedish passport.
When I arrived in Sweden, I started calling my grandmother in Gaza, and then an idea came to me. I arranged for another cell phone, and I started to call my grandmother’s house in Gaza, and with the other cell phone, I called my father in Syria. I turned on the speakers on both phones so that my grandmother could talk to her son, my father, after all these years—and it worked.
Suddenly, less than three months after I arrived in Sweden, Israel waged a war on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. The first thing they did was bomb the phone towers, so communication with Gaza was cut off. My grandmother only had one landline.
It took a long time after the Israeli bombing for the Palestinians to rebuild the towers and restore communication. At that time, when I didn’t know if my grandmother was alive or not, I wrote the poem “We.”
Dimitra Didangelou: Language holds immense power in shaping political narratives. How does the Arabic language and its poetic tradition influence your approach to political themes in your work?
Ghayath Almadhoun: The power of Arabic poetry is based on four things: the enormous size of the Arab empire in the past, the length of time that empire spanned, the sacredness of the Arabic language, and the enormity of the Arabic poetic tradition.
The strength of English, for example, lies in the fact that it is spread over a large part of the world. Hebrew, on the other hand, does not have the power that comes from a huge empire, but its power comes from its holiness, from Judaism, from the holiness of the Old Testament, and its connection with the New Testament.
So Arabic combines the advantages of both English and Hebrew. It has power based on political action, like English, and also holiness, like Hebrew. Its power comes from its spread across the Arab Empire, which dominated the ancient world for centuries, with Damascus, Baghdad, and Andalusia at its heart, stretching from Spain to the borders of China, three times the size of the Roman Empire at its height. Even when the empire was divided into several kingdoms, those kingdoms continued to dominate the ancient world for long periods of time.
Then there is the sanctity of the Arabic language, which stems from the fact that it is the language of the Qur’an, the last book of the Abrahamic religions, and the holy book of the second-largest religion in the world.
I have always been captivated by Arabic poetry, which boasts a rich history and a lasting legacy. A striking feature of this art form is that the Arabic language has remained relatively unchanged over the last 1,500 years. This stability can be attributed to the necessity of reading the Quran in its original language and conducting prayers in Arabic. In contrast to Christianity, where various translations of the Bible are sufficient for worship and understanding, Arabic has preserved its linguistic integrity, safeguarding its cultural heritage through the centuries.
I consider myself fortunate to have access to such a vast reservoir of Arabic poetry. This allows me to engage with works composed over 1,500 years ago without encountering barriers of language or meaning.
Ultimately, I am, without a doubt, an Arab poet. I frequently remind myself that my audience consists of Arab readers—those who can engage directly with my words in the language they have grown up with. Writing in Arabic is a privilege, as it is spoken by more than 400 million people across 22 countries, each with its own unique culture, history, and nuances.
My poetry resonates differently across these various nations, reflecting our shared heritage. Crafting my verses in Arabic enables me to explore a wide array of cultural expressions, allowing my poems to convey one meaning to a reader in Egypt and a subtly different meaning to someone in Syria, Tunisia, or Yemen. This dynamic and fluid form of communication makes our vast, shared language deeply significant, connecting us in profound ways.
Dimitra Didangelou: When writing about traumatic events, especially those involving violence and war, do you feel a responsibility to present a certain truth or reality?
Ghayath Almadhoun: As I’ve mentioned, my work mirrors my life, reality, memories, and experiences—much like any artist’s creations. The challenge lies in the fact that my life and experiences are deeply woven into an unjust reality. I often say that my poetry will only change when reality itself changes. Honestly, all I ever wanted was to write a love poem for a girl I liked. Yet here I am, thirty years after penning that poem as a teenager, still clinging to the dream of crafting the perfect love poem.
Dimitra Didangelou: As a poet living outside of your country, how does exile influence your writing? Do you feel the responsibility of your poetry serving as a bridge between your personal identity and the broader political narrative of Palestine?
Ghayath Almadhoun: The most profound impact of exile on me has been the opportunity to perceive the Arabic language in a new light. Writing from a distance has allowed me to understand and appreciate the true aesthetics and immense poetic power of the language from a fresh perspective. This shift prompted me to reconfigure my poetic tools, adapting them to the new realities of estrangement and displacement.
Being an outsider compelled me to reconsider what it means to write as an Arab poet in exile. I relinquished the arrogance often associated with poets. In exile, I encountered a different kind of humility. Moreover, the absence of the dictatorship I had known brought with it a sense of liberation. No longer constrained to cloak my meanings in symbolism and puns to evade censorship, as many writers do under oppressive regimes, I found the freedom to express myself more openly. I began to rely less on metaphor and metonymy, moving closer to the essence of poetry itself. I aimed for my words to be direct and unembellished, reflecting the raw realities of exile, loss, and survival. This transformation extended beyond language; it was about uncovering a deeper, more authentic voice that emerged when the fear of censorship faded. The distance from home allowed me to appreciate both the beauty and fragility of my language and identity.
I would also like to add a personal statement about exile and Western culture because exile has historically provided a fertile ground for inspirational poets. In the aftermath of World War II, Western writers found themselves in a unique predicament; there were no longer dictatorial regimes to escape from, and the dramatic narratives of exile that once fueled their creativity seemed to diminish. In response, they sought to fill this void by establishing grants, scholarships, and cultural exchanges, aiming to recreate the rich experiences that exile had offered. This endeavor was an attempt to compensate for the absence of exile in Western literature, allowing poets to explore new perspectives and broaden their artistic horizons in a world where the harsh realities of displacement were no longer a prominent theme.
Dimitra Didangelou: Born in Damascus, emigrated to Sweden, and now you live between Berlin and Stockholm. What is “home” for you? When—not where—do you feel “at home”?
Ghayath Almadhoun: Poets are generally in a constant state of flux, even if their lives do not change radically. But when a poet leaves the familiar environment in which he or she lives with stable and monotonous security, and especially when he or she finds themselves in a place where their language does not belong, the alienation becomes multilayered, and it becomes a double alienation. For a poet with a nomadic soul, this kind of dislocation can feel as if the gravity that holds the poet to the ground has disappeared, and the apple falls upwards, as I say in my poem, and it becomes important to get used to balance without gravity.
The essence of poetry lies in its ability to reflect these wandering souls, those who never rest. Being removed from one’s place and becoming a stranger is the prerequisite for being a witness; now, the poet can clearly observe the world from an outsider’s perspective, thus fulfilling his role as a witness to the world.
I find myself treating Berlin as a dystopian utopia, and having an outsider’s perspective allows me to see the city more clearly. This has led me to the conclusion that exile in Berlin is not temporary. And so here I am, raising my middle finger to the white supremacist intellectuals who surround me. I can now say with certainty that the damage caused by the deep-rooted racism in German culture no longer affects me because too much trauma has given me “crocodile skin,” as we say in Arabic.
From now on, writing is my real homeland. As Theodor Adorno says, “For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live.”
Dimitra Didangelou: Can you tell us how you have experienced the political and cultural situation in Germany since October 7th?
Ghayath Almadhoun: We are currently experiencing a challenging period in Germany, marked by the systematic suppression of our voices and the widespread cancellation of our cultural activities. Events of all kinds—readings, exhibitions, book launches, award ceremonies, music performances, lectures, film screenings, and even the closure of cultural centers—are being affected. It seems that Germany has failed to learn from its history. Instead, we see a continuation of brutal oppression against Palestinians. The cancellations in Germany right now have become one of the most extensive in the history of contemporary Europe.
In addition, we find ourselves in a toxic atmosphere within an unwelcoming society that consistently labels our identities as dangerous, our pursuit of equality as politically incorrect, and our yearning for freedom as a threat.
Once again, we are witnessing Germans—governments and citizens, across public and private spheres, groups and individuals, across the entire political spectrum, whether independent or aligned—engaging in an organized, systematic collective effort to silence, erase, and censor the voices of a group of people. They strip us of our values, treat us as enemies, and dehumanize us.
I was one of the first to be silenced in Germany, following the cancellation of the launch event of a poetry anthology I curated and edited for Haus für Poesie on October 12, 2023. Now, we are a large group of artists facing this systematic policy of silencing, cancellation, and censorship.
People once claimed ignorance of what happened during the 1930s. Today, I am telling you this because I want you to witness this moment in history.
Now you know!
*Read Ghayath Almadhoun’s here.
*Photos by Cato Lein and Ramy Al-Asheq