The Damascene Havana cafe

The Havana Café is located at the center of Damascus between Youssef Al-Azma Square and Al-Hejaz Train Station on the right corner of Port Said Street.

The ancient aesthetic pieces that adorn its halls and corridors are almost extracted from the spirit of Damascus or from the exceptional fragrance of jasmine.

The most famous literary cafe in Damascus, Havana,was founded in 1945. It is close to the administration building of the weekly newspaper (Al-Noqqad), which was supervised by the late writer Saeed Al-Jazaery and the journalist Mumtaz Al-Rikabi.This location made this cafe a meeting place for intellectual, artists,  writers, and politicians since the forties of the last century as it was one of the important cafes such as Al-Rawda , Al-Brazil, and Al-Kamal Cafe.

An elite  of Syrian and Arab intellectuals, thinkers, writers, poets and men of society used to frequent this cafe, among the most prominent of them are the poet Muhammad al-Maghout, the poet Ismail Amoud, the satirical writer Sharif al-Ras. The Iraqi poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab, Abdul-Wahhab Al-Bayati, Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi, who lived in Damascus and used to sit in the Havana for long hours, Al-Qarawi poet, Muhammad Mahdi Al-Jawahiri, the poet Muzaffar Al-Nawab, and the Egyptian Ahmed Abd Maati Hegazy, were also among its distinguished pioneers who used to frequent it when they visit Damascus.

Its Egyptian visitors including the artist Mahmoud El-Meligy, Farid Shawqi, singer Muhammad Abdel-Muttalib likened the Havana to the al-Fishawy Cafe of Cairo.

The Havana Cafe was the birthplace of tens and perhaps hundreds of poems and poetic texts.

Amal Farhat