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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story

It is spring 2012 and 40,000 people have died since the start of the Syrian Arab Spring. In the wake of this, Yasmin has set up a clandestine hospital in the north of the country. The town that she lives in is controlled by Assad’s brutal regime, but is relatively stable. However, as the months pass, the situation becomes increasingly complex and violent. Told in stark, beautiful black-and-white imagery,   Freedom Hospital   illuminates a complicated situation with gut-wrenching detail and very dark humour.

The story of Syria is one of the most devastating narratives of our age and   Freedom Hospital   is an important and timely book from a new international talent.

Author

Hamid Sulaiman

Hamid Sulaiman

Books

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story

Hamid Sulaiman is a Syrian artist born in 1986. He studied architecture and fine arts in Damascus. In 2011 he got arrested and tortured by the Assad regime, shortly afterwards he fled the country, first to Germany, then to Paris.

Hamid Sulaiman has been working on a comic about the life of people in the Syrian civil war since he left Damascus and fled to Europe. In it he addresses the events in his homeland, the experiences of his friends and personal, autobiographical moments. In this way, he creates a striking picture of the political situation and of everyday life in Syria. Using the mediums of drawing and comics he compresses five years of civil war – the violence, the turmoil, the disasters and the everlasting principle of hope.

On 280 sheets with about 1120 individual drawings, he depicts the everyday life of the Syrian youth in the Civil War, perpetually threatened by the Assad-regime and the IS, coping with the daily violence and searching for normality in utterly abnormal surroundings. His stories are based on his own experiences as well as on You-Tube-footage, personal impressions as well as political propaganda images, individual fates as well as iconographic news feed photos.

Ever since he has been part of several group exhibitions in Germany and France, where he attracted attention especially with his evocative, expressive ink drawings. For the last three years Hamid Sulaiman has been working on a comic, which reflects the life in Syria.

Translator

Francesca Barrie

Francesca Barrie

Books

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story

Francesca Barrie is a translator from French and Italian. She studied at Oxford University and went on to complete an MA in French at University College London.

Having lived and worked as a translator in Paris, Francesca was shortlisted for the Institut Françis’s Young Translator of the Year prize. Her translation of Tiphaine Rivière’s Notes on a Thesis, published by Jonathan Cape in 2016, received rave reviews.

Published by

Jonathan Cape, 2017
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It is spring 2012 and 40,000 people have died since the start of the Syrian Arab Spring. In the wake of this, Yasmin has set up a clandestine hospital in the north of the country. The town that she lives in is controlled by Assad’s brutal regime, but is relatively stable. However, as the months pass, the situation becomes increasingly complex and violent. Told in stark, beautiful black-and-white imagery,   Freedom Hospital   illuminates a complicated situation with gut-wrenching detail and very dark humour.

The story of Syria is one of the most devastating narratives of our age and   Freedom Hospital   is an important and timely book from a new international talent.

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