Middle East/North African Lit discussion

If we decided to read from Syria specially Syrian civil war it is not going to be easy to find a lot of options by native authors . can you share with us your thoughts about reading from Syria ?

I think The Shell has only been translated into French and Italian, but a big fan of Khalifa translated it into English for a reading group a couple of years ago ( here something about it), but I'm not sure it's easy to find. I've read it in Italian too and I've loved it.
Shady Hamadi is another great Syrian author. But, as he's half Italian, he writes his books in Italian and I'm not sure they have been translated into English. He's most famous book is called The Arab Happiness.
Another great work is Nihad Sirees' The Silence and the Roar. It's the story of a writer in an untold country ruled by an untold dictator. It's amazing too.

Here are a few more names that have crossed my mind. Zakariya Tamer, a Syrian writer currently living in exile in the UK. He's a short-stories author and I think his most famous collection is The Hedgehog published in 2005. I haven't read anything by him yet but I'm really looking forward to putting it right.
Perhaps about Syrian revolution you guys can find Samar Yazbek interesting. She's a Syrian journalist and writer. She is a member of the Alawi community, but an opponent of the government of her co-religionist president Bashar al-Assad and she took part in the 2011 protests against him. Her most recent works are: A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution and The Crossing: My journey to the shattered heart of Syria. She's also one of the voices of Beirut39, a collection of 39 of the most promising Arab writers under the age of 39. Published in 2009, it also includes works by Syrian novelists Rosa Yaseen Hasan and Dima Wannous.

Great , Thank you !

My library has access to The Silence and the Roar (already on my list) and A Woman in the Crossfire (which I have added to my list).

I would also like to read The Hedgehog and In Praise of Hatred.
Here are a couple of other titles I came across: Just Like a River and Sabriya: Damascus Bitter Sweet.