Return to Damascus

After 15 years away, Palestinian-Syrian writer Ahmad Diab documents his trip back

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In the almost five months since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime, many exiled Syrians have returned home for the first time in years. What Syria will become remains unknown and new violence this week shows the question of stability in Syria is far from reconciled. But even amidst uncertainty, for those who are returning, the experience is extraordinary.

Palestinian-Syrian writer Ahmad Diab is one of these returnees. Visiting his mother, sister and brother in Syria for the first time in 15 years, he recorded his return with videos of the first flight from Doha to Damascus, of impromptu singing and dancing in the Havana Café and of a quiet city street in the Yarmouk Camp district of Damascus. For Ahmad, his experience returning to Syria offers a meditation on what it means to be a Palestinian-Syrian with a double exile and double return. His videos are a salve to the other videos of fighting, airstrikes and funerals in Syria flooding our newsfeeds these last few days.

—Kira Brunner Don