As a writer, my weapon is my pen. I want to create more awareness about the people in Syria. This is the most important issue: protecting civilians in this crazy war.

Some of my good friends who were writers disappeared. Others are still inside Syria and there are others who are refugees. I'm worried about those who disappeared. I don't know anything about them now. They just disappeared like that after the war started, while I was living in the United States.

When you have a goal to reach, you will be strong automatically. And you will be patient automatically. If you don't have a goal, your life will be a disaster. You will lose yourself and you will lose your soul.

I'm writing a novel about the Syrian war. It will be completely different from my short stories. I have to address my feelings directly because I cannot avoid the war. It's something in my soul, in my blood.

Weakness is worse than cancer, I think. It's a kind of psychological or spiritual cancer. And if you have a goal in your life, you'll get psychological immunity. Psychological immunity is a kind of optimism, just like spring.

As a writer, my weapon is my pen. I want to create more awareness about the people in Syria. This is the most important issue: protecting civilians in this crazy war.

I was afraid that something would happen to me. But at the same time I was lucky, because some writers were tortured and jailed. I always used metaphors that could be interpreted in more than one way. Maybe this style protected me.