the smiling arab

Omar Youssef Souleimane

Éditions Flammarion, 240 pages, 2025

Why you should take a look at it:
√ Strong relevance to current geopolitical and migration debates
√ A gripping hybrid structure between novel and investigation
√ A distinctive, authentic authorial voice with strong literary and commercial appeal

The Smiling Arab is a contemporary literary novel that interweaves exile, memory, and political reflection through a gripping personal quest. The narrator, a Syrian writer living in exile in France for over a decade, has built a fragile stability far from his homeland. Yet the past continues to haunt him—especially the disappearance of his closest friend, a figure tied to his youth and to the early hopes of Syria before the war.

When he learns of his friend’s death, he returns to the Middle East in search of answers. What begins as a journey of mourning quickly transforms into an investigation into disappearance, responsibility, and loss. With Clara—his friend who eventually becomes his lover—he tracks scattered clues that lead him across borders and through shifting memories.

From La Rochelle to Beirut and into the devastated landscapes of Syria, the narrative unfolds as both physical journey and inner descent. Each encounter adds ambiguity rather than resolution, forcing the narrator to confront not only the fate of his friend, but also his own divided identity between exile and origin.

Omar Youssef Souleimane is a Syrian poet and writer living in exile in France. His work engages deeply with themes of displacement, identity, and the political and human consequences of the Syrian conflict. His writing combines lyrical precision with narrative clarity, offering an intimate yet politically resonant perspective on contemporary exile. His novel The Last Syrian was published in 2024 by Seagull Books.