Some novels begin with an event. Others begin with a loss that happened long ago, yet never truly seems to fade. Labyrinth der verwaisten Wünsche by Samer Al Najjar belongs to the latter category: A young man seeks his place in a world that repeatedly takes away everything he tries to hold onto. His story leads from Damascus through revolution, war, and flight to Vienna – and at the same time deeply into memories, wounds, and the hope of being able to start anew.
A House in Damascus That Only Exists in Memory
At the beginning there is the memory of a traditional Damascene house: many rooms, large windows, a semi-open courtyard, and a water basin where fruit was cooled in summer. It is the grandfather's house – a place of security and at the same time a symbol of a lost world. In reality, this idyll has been destroyed. In the novel, however, it can continue to live.
This is precisely one of the book's particular strengths. Damascus is not merely the backdrop for a novel about Syria. The city becomes a repository of personal memory. Streets, houses, family relationships, and political events intertwine with Adam's inner life. What happens outside leaves its mark on him – and what happened in the past continues to influence his present.
When Hope Becomes History
Adam learned early how uncertain closeness can be. His parents die in a car accident, and he subsequently grows up in his uncle's house, experiencing emotional abuse and harassment. When the Syrian Revolution begins in 2011, something larger than his own damaged life suddenly opens up to him: the idea of freedom.
The young man joins peaceful protests and advocates for democracy and freedom rights. For him, revolution therefore means more than politics. It gives him direction, meaning, and the feeling of being part of something. Precisely in this, Labyrinth der verwaisten Wünsche becomes a psychologically unusual novel about the Syrian Revolution: Political hope and personal longing are hardly separable for Adam.
In an interview, Samer Al Najjar describes this idea very clearly: "I dream every day of a free, democratic Syria, loved by its own people, as they love themselves." – Samer Al Najjar in an author interview with the publisher, February 2023.
Flight Does Not Mean Leaving the Past Behind
However, hope turns into persecution and violence. After Adam experiences the Ghouta chemical attacks near Damascus in 2013, his path first leads to Turkey and finally to Europe. However, anyone expecting a straightforward story of escape here will find something different. For the geographical distance from Syria does not end Adam's inner conflict.
He carries his childhood, his losses, and his war experiences with him. Memories abruptly break into the present. Thus, the novel tells not only of flight and migration, but of the much more difficult question of what a person can actually leave behind. The external homeland is lost – but an inner home became uncertain for Adam much earlier.
This connection leads to one of the novel's strongest motifs: the search for home and belonging. Adam seeks stability in political ideals, memories, philosophical thoughts, and relationships. Again and again, he hopes to be allowed to stay somewhere or with someone.
Vienna Is Not an End, But a New Test
In Vienna, a new life initially seems possible. But then Adam receives news that shakes him again: Darin, his cousin and childhood sweetheart, has died. The past, from which no train and no border protect, catches up with him. Adam falls into a severe psychological crisis.
Precisely here, the novel rejects a simple narrative of "arrival." Flight does not automatically end with safety, and safety is far from inner peace. Samer Al Najjar is interested in those invisible consequences of war, violence, and uprooting that easily disappear behind numbers and political terms in public discussions about refugees.
And What If Love Remains in the End?
And yet, something remains open. In Vienna, Adam meets a young Syrian woman. Love suddenly appears as a last chance to re-establish connection – perhaps even as a counter-design to all the previous losses. The novel does not decide this question for the reader. Its ending preserves the uncertainty already inherent in the title: Wishes can be orphaned, but they do not disappear because of it.
Thus, Labyrinth der verwaisten Wünsche is far more than a refugee novel about Syria. It is the story of a young man whose private wounds coincide with a historical upheaval. Between Damascus and Vienna, Samer Al Najjar tells of revolution and war, of memory and uprooting – but above all, of how persistently a person searches for freedom, love, and a place he can call home.
The book is available in German language as a printed, softcover edition (ISBN 978-3-910347-08-3) and as an EPUB (ISBN 978-3-910347-16-8) in bookstores or here in the publisher's shop.
