Haidar Haidar

Haidar Haidar (; 1936 – 5 May 2023) was a Syrian writer and novelist. He acquired a wide reputation for his critical attitude towards political and religious institutions and his willingness to cover controversial topics in a rational way. He published seventeen books of fiction, short stories, essays and biography, including The Desolate Time (Az-Zaman al-Muhish), which was chosen by the Arab Writers Union as one of the best 105 books of the 20th century.

Literary career His novel Walimah li A'ashab al-Bahr, (A Feast for the Seaweeds), was banned in several Arab countries, and even resulted in a belated angry reaction from the clerics of Al-Azhar University upon reprinting in Egypt in the year 2000. The clerics issued a Fatwa banning the novel, and accused Haidar of heresy and offending Islam. Al-Azhar University students staged huge protests against the novel, that eventually led to its confiscation. According to a BBC News report about the protests, "the plot centres on two leftist Iraqi intellectuals who fled the injustice of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the late 1970s. The characters blame political oppression in the Arab world on dictatorships and conservative movements. In one of the most controversial extracts, God is described as a failed artist."

In a 2019 interview for the magazine The Common, Hisham Bustani wrote about Haidar: "He has kept a fierce, critical distance from all sides: the dictatorship of the ruling regime in his country of Syria; the dictatorship of public taste and ‘conventions;’ the oppression of dogmatic ideology and the ruling party; the tyranny of power derived from religion."

Haidar died on 5 May 2023, at the age of 87.

Works Novels Al-Fahd , 1968 Az-Zaman al-Muhish , 1973 Walimah li A'ashab al-Bahr 1983 Maraya an-Nar , 1992 Shumous al-Ghajar , 1996 Haql Urjuwan , 2000 Marathi al-Ayyam , 2001

Short stories Hakaya an-Nawrass al-Muhajir , 1968 Al-Wamdh , 1970 Al-Faiadhan , 1975 Al-Wu'ul , 1978 At-Tamawujat , 1982 Ghasaq al-Aalihah , 1994

Other works Capucci , 1978 Awraq al-Manfa , 1993 Olumona

Death Haidar Haidar died on 5 May 2023, at the age of 87.