Rasha Omran Explained

Rasha Omran
Birth Place:Tartus, Syria
Alma Mater:Damascus University (Arabic literature)
Occupation:Poet, director of the Al-Sindiyan Festival of Culture

Rasha Omran (Arabic: رشا عمران) 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, Syria, into a family of artists. She is the daughter of Syrian poet Mohammad Omran,[1] 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 to study Arabic literature. 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.[2]

Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, she has publicly given her support for the uprising. “This is a dictatorial regime, [....] How can I support a government that kills its citizens?”[3] She has marched in protests, written about her dissent, and spoken out against Assad.[4] Assad is "not a dictator, just a gangster boss."[5] Omran coined the phrase, "the international silence on Syria is deafening.".[6] 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 outside the Arab League's headquarters in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, demanding that the Arab League provides more support for the revolutionaries, and pressure Assad to halt the human rights abuses in Syria.[7] [8]

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

Translations

English

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Mohammad Omran
  2. Web site: Iraq. Reel. The Golden Hour.
  3. News: Sotlof. Steven. Dissent Among the Alawites: Syria's Ruling Sect Does Not Speak with One Voice. Sep 10, 2012.
  4. News: Sotloff. Steven. Dissent Among the Alawites: Syria's Ruling Sect Does Not Speak with One Voice . Sep 10, 2012.
  5. News: Yassin-Kassab. Robin. Dubious wisdom: Assad's waiting game. 29 Nov 2013.
  6. News: Schembri. David. Long way ahead for Syria's Arab spring. 8 March 2014. 25 September 2011.
  7. News: Online. Ahram. Syrian female artists to start hunger strike at Arab League in Cairo Tuesday. 4 Sep 2012.
  8. News: Jamal. Randa. Syrian Women Launch Hunger Strike. September 2012.
  9. A secret wife of absence
  10. She who dwelt in the house before me
  11. Panorama of death and solitude
  12. A red and empty coat
  13. Your Shadow, Cast in my Utter Yearning
  14. 3 Poems from A Secret Wife of Absence
  15. Rasha Omran translated by Phoebe Bay Carter
  16. Defy the silence
  17. If I Were a Cat
  18. When longing tormented me