{"id":12415,"date":"2020-07-31T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-01T01:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.ryerson.ca\/asianheritage\/?page_id=12415"},"modified":"2025-11-24T15:38:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T20:38:29","slug":"jamal-saeed","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/authors\/jamal-saeed\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamal Saeed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Jamal Saeed spent a dozen years as a prisoner of conscience in a Syrian prison before being invited to Canada in 2016. Now living in Kingston, Ontario, Saeed works as an activist, editor, visual artist, and author. His work raises awareness about Syria\u2019s ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fiction (Juvenile, Picture book)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My Sister the Apple Tree<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Co-authored by Jordan Scott.
Artwork by Zahra Marwan.
New York: Random House Studio, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When a young boy asks his parents why he doesn\u2019t have a brother or sister, his mother replies that on the day he was born, they planted an apple tree in their front yard. \u201cThe apple tree is your sister,\u201d she says. At night, the boy wraps a blanket around his sister’s trunk and during the day he shares all of his secrets with her. One day, they see helicopters in the sky and his parents tell him they must flee. But how can he leave his sister behind? Instead he digs her up and carries her away from their homeland. When they arrive to a new place, the air is colder and the ground is hard. Home feels so far away. But as his sister grows taller and her branches blossom, the boy realizes that he will always be connected to his homeland, even as he begins to embrace his new one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fiction (Short stories)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Princess Nai and Other Stories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Toronto: ECW Press, 2025.
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Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Jamal Saeed wrote the stories in this collection during different stages of his life, but most originated while he was a prisoner of conscience in one of the worst prisons in the world. Other stories were composed after the Syrian uprising in 2011. One story \u2014 written in 2009 when he was still in Syria \u2014 is about a mythical olive tree that the Syrian military would eventually destroy. Canada plays a role too: Two of the stories were rewritten after his family finally escaped Syria and landed in Kingston, Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these stories, reality and imagination coexist, and again and again the reader arrives at the truth by exploring the imaginary. Most of Saeed\u2019s pieces include a poetic scene that enables the reader to engage with various characters\u2019 fresh dreams (or their scattered and shattered dreams, as the case may be). Love, beauty, despair, hope, the longing for freedom, the search for lost time, and the impact of the past all coexist and vie for supremacy. Here too there is betting on the future (along with mockery of every kind of bet).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fiction (Juvenile)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yara’s Spring<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Authored with Sharon E. McKay.
Drawings by Nahid Kazemi.
Toronto: Annick Press, 2020.
PS8637.A355 Y37 2020<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n

Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything \u2014 the clouds in the winter sky, the \u201cfirework\u201d display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in Aleppo, Yara\u2019s childhood has long been shadowed by the coming revolution. But when the Arab Spring finally arrives at Yara\u2019s doorstep, it is worse than even her Nana imagined: sudden, violent, and deadly. When rescuers dig Yara out from under the rubble that was once her family\u2019s home, she emerges to a changed world. Her parents and Nana are gone, and her brother, Saad, can\u2019t speak\u2014struck silent by everything he\u2019s seen. Now, with her friend Shireen and Shireen\u2019s charismatic brother, Ali, Yara must try to find a way to safety. With danger around every corner, Yara is pushed to her limits as she discovers how far she\u2019ll go for her loved ones\u2014and for a chance for freedom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Non-fiction (Memoir)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My Road From Damascus: A Memoir<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Catherine Cobham.
Toronto: ECW Press, 2022.
E-book<\/a> (Access restricted to members of the university community)
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Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Jamal Saeed arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2016. In his native Syria, as a young man, his writing pushed both social and political norms. For this reason, as well as his opposition to the regimes of the al-Assads, he was imprisoned on three occasions for a total of 12 years. In each instance, he was held without formal charge and without judicial process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Road from Damascus<\/em> not only tells the story of Saeed\u2019s severe years in Syria\u2019s most notorious military prisons but also his life during the country\u2019s dramatic changes. Saeed chronicles modern Syria from the 1950s right up to his escape to Canada in 2016, recounting its descent from a country of potential to a pawn of cynical and corrupt powers. He paints a picture of village life, his youthful love affairs, his rebellion as a young Marxist, and his evolution into a free thinker, living in hiding as a teenager for 30 months while being hunted by the secret police. He recalls his brutal prison years, his final release, and his family\u2019s harrowing escape to Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many prison memoirs focus on the cruelty of incarceration, My Road from Damascus<\/em> offers a tapestry of Saeed\u2019s whole life. It looks squarely at brutality but also at beauty and poetry, hope and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards and Honours<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction<\/a> (Finalist)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Annick Press<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher ECW Press<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Random House Studio<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Jamal Saeed spent a dozen years as a prisoner of conscience in a Syrian prison before being invited to Canada in 2016. Now living in Kingston, Ontario, Saeed works as an activist, editor, visual artist, and author. His work raises … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":16,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12415","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12415"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20940,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12415\/revisions\/20940"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}