Damascus: Taste of a City

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  • Author: Rafik Schami
  • Publisher: Haus Publishers Ltd
  • Catalogue: 189082
  • Size: 13x17cm
“Damascus: Taste of a City” is a touching, thought-provoking book that gives new meaning to what home is and how we experience the feeling of it. It is said: ‘When a man has lived seven years in Damascus, Damascus lives in him.’

Rafik Schami, a prize-winning novelist and exile, lived in Damascus for twenty-five years. Unable to return to the city he loves, his sister walks him through the streets by phone, vividly describing the sights, sounds and flavours of the ‘Pearl of the Orient’.

With their link established, they wandered through Damascus for a year, he in exile and her giving him the morsels that would inspire this text; so Marie Fadel in the city and Rafik Schami – almost torn apart by longing – on the telephone in Germany. His joy came not only from strolling through the city, but also from realising how the diversity of peoples that have migrated through Damascus have combined to create an outstanding cuisine.

He has added their stories to the transcriptions of the walks from the tape recorder that captured every telephone conversation. This book is an incredible example of how two seemingly insurmountable barriers – time and geography – can be overcome.