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.

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.

Some people think that the Syrian people are from another planet. On the contrary, I think that we all live inside the same boat, on the same planet. And the Syrian war affects everybody now, the whole world. There are Syrian refugees everywhere now. But it looks like nobody cares about civilians in Syria. They are suffering. There are hundreds of victims - innocent women, children, and old men who are hurt or killed every day - and no one cares about them.

Before Donald Trump, I was not worried. To be honest with you, when I came to the United States, I felt freedom right away. But after Trump, I became worried not only for immigrants, not only for Muslims, not only for the US. Now I'm worried for the whole world.

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.

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.

I write in Arabic and prefer writing my stories by hand. I need a cup of tea or coffee when I write. When I was in Syria, I was addicted to tea, but now I'm addicted to Starbucks.