The novel “Olga” wins third place

Homsi novelist Nidaa Al-Hussein won the Hanna Mina Award for Novel organized by the Syrian Ministry of Culture for her novel “Olga”, in which she monitors the transformations in Syrian society before, during and after the war, according to Olga, the main character in the novel. Then she moves to describe the Russian environment when Olga migrates with her mother to Russia, as her father is Syrian and her mother is Russian.

Concerning her success,  Al-Hussein said, “I didn’t want to win as much as I wanted to tell the cultural and media community that I’m here, and I write. Why don’t you celebrate with me?” This is what I was concerned with as I submitted the required copies of the novel, and I achieved what I wanted, regardless of the prize’s value. My work “Olga” is what I wanted, as it is considered the most important prize for a novel in Syria.

It is worth noting that the writer Nidaa Youssef Hussein has previously released three story collections entitled, “The Female Ashes,” “The Empty Bag”, and “The Night of the Moon Fall”. She has a novel published in Lebanon entitled, “Love and Terror.”

The writer began her literary career in Al-Orouba newspaper, in the page of “On the Abqar Road.” She published her first story twenty years ago, entitled: “Half a Brain.” She worked as an Arabic language teacher for 13 years, and after obtaining a degree in French, she moved to teaching French language in Homs.

Amal Farhat