Jamal Saeed, Syrian activist, writer, and artist, recently published Yara’s Spring. The young adult novel follows the Arab Spring from the perspective of Yara, a teenage girl in Syria.
Saeed, who co-penned the book with author Sharon E. McKay, drew on his own experiences for the story. The activist had spent 12 years as a prisoner of conscience in Syria before relocating to Canada with his family. Saeed is now based in Ontario.
“The book gives a picture of the Syrian civil war but it is also about family, friendship, loyalty, and the support of strangers,” Saeed told Open Book. “It is also about love and adventure!”
Yara’s Spring won awards from the Ontario Library Association and the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in 2021. The novel is on the 2020 Kirkus Best Books List.
Jamal Saeed: Artist, Activist, and Writer
Saeed holds a Bachelors in English Literature from Damascus University. From 1993 to 2014, he worked as a Production Director at the New Pioneers publishing house in Damascus. Saeed edited books, designed covers for both Syrian and Lebanese publishers, and translated books and articles into Arabic from English.
After relocating to Canada, Saeed met with McKay and agreed to collaborate on a YA novel about the Arab Spring. It was Canadian writer Ray Argyle who introduced them. Argyle was the head of the refugee sponsorship committee that brought Saeed and his family to Ontario.
“Sharon visited me in Kingston and we sat at the dining table (I had no office at the time) where we discussed the outlines, the title, and the characters,” Saeed told Book Time. “…my big job was to make sure the culture, events and the characters attitudes and reactions were accurate.”
Now, like Pakistani-American author Aisha Saeed, Saeed is the author of a children’s book with a strong female protagonist.
As an artist and activist, Saeed continues to engage his community with workshops on Arab culture in Ontario. He teaches on varying subjects including language, music, calligraphy, and fine arts.
In 2020, Saeed partnered with literary agency Westwood Creative Artists to write an autobiography entitled The Road from Damascus.
Jamal Saeed spent 12 years as a Prisoner of Conscience
“I, like Yara, suffered during the civil war,” Saeed recalled. “When I was seventeen years-old I watched as my family home was raided by soldiers of the al-Assad regime. I was arrested at nineteen for passing out pamphlets.”
“Imagine a hundred people in a cell where you are always touching another,” Saeed told Book Time. “There are no beds, thin, smelly blankets that were close to rags, no changes of clothes for months and years…When people are taken out and interrogated, they sometimes come back bloody and bruised. Sometimes they don’t come back… I truly believe my creative outlets helped me keep my sanity.”
“In the isolation cell I made chess pieces from stale bread and water. I mixed in cigarette ash for the black pieces,” he said. “…I would spend hours and days making mosaics of words, poems and pictures of scenes with [stones].”
For years, Saeed and his family listened to explosions from their Damascus home. After a particularly huge blast in summer 2013, Saeed requested asylum from the International Cities of Refugee Network (ICORN). They had to wait along with a list of artists, writers, and journalists. After a kidnapping attempt, Saeed fled with his family to Dubai.
“After two-armed men followed my wife and sons in a failed attempt to kidnap them, we decided to escape out of the country at our first opportunity,” explained Saeed. “Through various connections, [we got] a tourist visa…but Dubai is one of the most expensive places to live…Plus, there is no path to citizenship in that country, so there was no real future.”
In 2016, the Kingston Writers’ Refugee Committee offered Saeed and his family asylum in Canada. They moved that same year.
Saeed is married to poet Rufaida al Khabbaz. They have two sons.
Jamal Saeed published “Yara’s Spring”
Saeed’s latest novel follows Yara, a teen girl growing up in Aleppo, Syria as revolutionary tensions grow. When the Arab Spring finally breaks out, Yara’s parents and grandmother are gone. Only she and her brother, Saad, remain. After being pulled out from the rubble of their home, Saad no longer speaks. It is up to Yara, her friend Shireen and Shireen’s brother Ali to bring themselves to safety.
“It was Sharon McKay who initiated the idea of telling a story about a Syrian girl,” Saeed recalled. “I joined the project afterward, and it was not hard to recall so many teenage girls and help synthesize their stories into one character.”
“Yara loves her country. So do I. I miss the peaceful Syria I grew up in,” said Saeed. “Writing this project has made me think about my past, the good and the bad. Now that I am in Canada with my beautiful wife and sons, it makes me wonder too of a future I could never have imagined.”
Purchase Yara’s Spring by Jamal Saeed and Sharon McKay here.
