The Book of Damascus Manchester Launch
Price: 5.00
Discount Price: 0.00
Free tickets are available for anyone on a low income, or who couldn't otherwise afford to purchase a ticket
Rethink Rebuild Society, Discovery House, Crossley Rd, Stockport SK4 5BH
About the event
Join Comma Press and Rethink Rebuild Society to launch The Book of Damascus in Manchester, an anthology of ten stories set in the Syrian capital. This anthology captures glimpses of the ongoing struggles Syrians face that no amount of journalism could come close to.
During this event, you'll hear readings from the authors followed by a discussion about the anthology with the editor. You'll also have the opportunity to ask questions during an audience Q+A at the end of the event.
About Rethink Rebuild Society
Rethink Rebuild Society (RR) is a Manchester-based charity that works towards improving the lives of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants, in particular but not exclusively Syrians in the UK, helping them become positively established within British society.
RR began informally after the start of the uprising in Syria in March 2011. In May 2013 it was formally registered as a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales (Company No. 08528808) and then registered as a charity in England in Wales in April 2018 (Charity No. 1177807)
Odai Al-Zoubi is a Syrian short-story writer, essayist, and translator. Born in Damascus in 1981, he studied electrical engineering at Damascus University (1998-2004), followed by philosophy at Lebanese University (2003-2007). He has a PhD in Philosophy from University of East Anglia. He has published one travelogue - Moving Shadows (Khan Aljanub, Berlin, 2025), and five collections of short stories: Silence (Al-Mutawassit, 2015), Windows (Al-Mutawassit, 2017), The Book of Wisdom and Naivety (Mamdouh Adwan, 2019), Half-Smile (Mamdouh Adwan, 2022), and Shackled Hearts (Safsafa, 2024).
Zaher Omareen is a war correspondent, filmmaker, and writer whose creative work is inspired by the conflict zones in which he has worked: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Sudan, and Iraq. He often explores the intersection of documentary and fiction, and his writing has been featured on BBC Radio 4, and in the anthologies Banthology: Stories from Unwanted Nations (Comma Press and Deep Vellum, 2018) and the bilingual Danish-English collection Eksil (Screaming Books, 2019), as well as in the journals Words Without Borders, Massachusetts Review, The Common, M-Dash and Trafika Europe. He co-edited the seminal Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline(Saqi Books/Dar Saqi, 2014) and is the editor of The Book of Damascus: A City in Short Fiction.
Rasha Abbas is a Syrian writer and journalist based in Berlin. She is the author of the short-story collections Adam Hates Television (2008), The Invention of German Grammar (2016), and The Gist of It (2019), the latter two have also been translated into German. In 2023, a stage adaptation of The Gist of It was presented at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin.
Tickets
We have three ticket types available for the event.
General Admission: This is our standard ticket price
Free with a Book: You just pay the price of the book, and your ticket to the event is free. You'll receive your copy of the book when you sign in at the event.
Low-income: This ticket is available for anyone who is on low-income or may not otherwise be able to afford the ticket price. Please feel free to purchase this ticket if this applies to you.
