Please join us for a talk presented by the Syrian novelist and screenwriter Nihad Sirees. Nihad Sirees was born in the ancient Syrian capital of Aleppo (Halab) in 1950. His first novels were published in the 1980s and he gained a reputation as a realist in his writings which reflect the environment in Aleppo and the lives of the middle class, as well as political, historical and social issues. He has written 7 novels and a number of plays, TV drama series and children’s dramas. His novel The North Winds, which deals with the First World War and the blossoming on Syrian national consciousness at that time, was described by critics as one of the most important historical novels in Syria. His novel The Silence and the Roar, banned in Syria, has been published in German, French, and most recently in English in 2013.