Ghada al-Samman

Ghada Ahmad Al-Samman (born 1942) is a Syrian author and poet. She was born in Damascus to a conservative Damascene family, and she has a close connection to the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani. Her father is Dr. Ahmad Al-Samman, who obtained his PhD from Sorbonne University in Political Economics and was the Head of the Syrian University and served as the Minister of Education in Syria for some time. At a young age, Ghada was severely affected by the death of her father. Her father was a lover of science, and international literature, and infatuated with Arab heritage, all at the same time. This granted Ghada a multifaceted personality both in her literary, and human life. Ghada was quick to shock the conservative Damascene community she grew up with, with both her penmanship and her person.

Quotes

	There are people you meet, that make you feel like you met yourself.
	هناك أشخاص عندما تلتقي بهم، تشعر كأنك التقيت بنفسك

	Why do mistakes only provoke people when it's a woman who makes them?
	لماذا لا يستفز الخطأ الناس إلا حينما تمارسه امرأة؟
	— Arab Woman... and Free

	I discovered that my rights do not surpass the right to eat, and drink, and birth, and die.
	اكتشفتُ أن حقوقي لا تتعدى حق الأكل والشرب والإنجاب والموت
	— حوار مع رجل لا يحصى

	The meaning of death is to know others and stay alive with them ! Death is the faces of those around us when their masks fall !
	معنى الموت هو أن نعرف الآخرين ونظل نحيا معهم ! الموت هو وجوه من حولنا حينما تسقط الأقنعة عنها
	— No Sea in Beirut