An exile in his homeland
Rafik Schami is one of the most important authors writing in the German language. Though he first came to Germany when he was 25 years old, his Syrian homeland is never far from his thoughts. It is also the setting for many of his stories. Markus Clauer introduces the best-selling author
One of Rafik Schami's most recent and at the same time oldest stories tells of a hairdresser he visited as a 15-year-old in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he was born in 1946. The barber was reputed to be a wise man. A deserved reputation as it transpired. However, to the writer's dismay, he proved to be more butcher than barber when it came to cutting hair. Schami's locks would eventually recover from the attentions of the hair-messer, and the story was stored away in his memory until it finally saw the light of day in 2011 as one of the tales in "Die Frau, die ihren Mann auf dem Flohmarkt verkaufte" (The woman who sold her husband at the flea market). It tells the story of how Schami became a writer.