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Biographical note
Fawwaz Haddad (b. 1947, Damascus) is a prominent Syrian novelist known for his incisive explorations of political and social themes in contemporary Arab life. A graduate of Damascus University with a degree in law, Haddad transitioned to full-time writing in 1988. His notable works include The Unfaithful Translator (2008), which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009, and God’s Soldiers (2010), longlisted for the same prize in 2011 and published in German as Gottes blutiger Himmel in 2013. In 2014, Haddad published The Enemy Syrians, a novel that delves into the corruption and brutality of the Syrian regime, spanning events from the 1982 Hama massacre to the onset of the 2011 uprising. His 2009 novel Solo Piano Music was translated into English by Max Weiss and released by Dar Arab in December 2023. Haddad's work is celebrated for its bold critique of authoritarianism and its commitment to portraying the complexities of Syrian society. Max Weiss is Associate Professor of History and associated faculty in Comparative Literature at Princeton University, and a literary translator of Arabic into English. He is the author of Revolutions Aesthetic: A Cultural History of Baʿthist Syria (Stanford University Press, 2022) and In the Shadow of Sectarianism: Law, Shiʿism, and the Making of Modern Lebanon (Harvard University Press, 2010), and the translator of many works of Arabic fiction and nonfiction, including, most recently, Alawiya Sobh’s This Thing Called Love (Seagull Books, 2023). He is currently writing an intellectual history of modern Syria and translating the latest book by Yassin al-Haj Saleh.Solo Piano Music is a political thriller that tackles issues of violence, belief, international terrorism, and the bonds of friendship. Set in early-twenty-first-century Syria, the novel introduces the reader to a mid-level investigator who works at a state-sponsored Institute for combatting terrorism. After a prominent secularist intellectual, Fateh al-Qalaj, is assaulted by an unknown assailant, the novel tracks Fateh’s descent into a labyrinth of political intrigue and personal relationships that draw attention to the brutality of political tyranny, the violence of international terrorism, and the challenges of friendship and belief in tumultuous times. Fawwaz Haddad transforms the challenges and dangers of life under authoritarian rule in the context of international geopolitics into a story of loss, faith, and personal responsibility.
Solo Piano Music is a gripping Syrian political thriller where an investigator and an injured intellectual are drawn into a deadly web of tyranny and terror. Like a haunting sonata played in a war zone, the novel explores belief, betrayal, and the quiet notes of resistance.
• “In Solo Piano Music, Fawwaz Haddad paints various pictures of fanaticism: there’s the secularist fanatic, the fanatic who supports the regime, representing one aspect of the fanaticism that suffuses the criminal structure of the regime founded upon violence, corruption, extremism, and killing.” Dr. Haitham Hussein, Syrian-Kurdish novelist, writer, and critic
• “The novel swings back and forth between dialogue and internal monologue, shedding light on a ‘top secret’ case that seems to be taking place, subtly yet persistently, within the mind of the mukhabarat agent and not in public view.” Dr. Joseph Bassil, Al-Nahar (Lebanon)