Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa talks about the war, the rise of Islamic State and his passion for writing. Kurt Sansone met him at his favourite spot in a Paceville cafe.

It is a different sort of Valentine’s that Khaled Khalifa celebrates as he explains the intense relationship between him, the table and the chair inside the cafe at the George Hotel.

With a smile on his face, the 51-year-old Syrian novelist taps his fingers on the table and looks at an empty espresso cup: the umpteenth coffee.

He has two spots he has made home in the spacious coffee shop. And like them, he has writing spots in other coffee shops in Paceville and Damascus.

“It is very cheap to write. All I need is a good table, a good chair and good coffee,” he says, insisting he only drinks coffee while writing.

Mr Khalifa came to Malta two months ago to find inspiration for a novel he is writing and the coffee shop in the Paceville hotel is one of the locations where the muse tickles his fancy.

Born into a big noisy family, the hustle and bustle of coffee shops is not a hindrance. Within the noisy surroundings he manages to find inner silence and spends hours writing.

Mr Khalifa’s third novel, In Praise of Hatred, was censored in his home country when it was first published in 2006.

The novel was about a family’s tribulations in 1980s Syria as government forces battled the Muslim Brotherhood.

It explored the ideology of Islamist militants, who challenged the rule of late president Hafez al-Assad, the father of today’s beleaguered President, Bashar al-Assad.

Mr Khalifa spent 13 years writing the book that won him international acclaim.

“I am a slow writer,” he says. Writing needs time, he adds.

“I may write one page and after a year discover it means nothing and has to be changed. I play around with my characters and language. They develop over time.”

Mr Khalifa’s novels are subtly political: they extract from reality but in essence they explore the life of ordinary Syrians.

His current writings revolve around a young man discovering himself in contemporary Syria. But that is as far as he goes in talking about the novel. The plan may yet change.

His Maltese stint is only a passing phase, because Mr Khalifa chooses to continue living in Damascus despite the turmoil in his country

“It is my country, how can I not live there? For my generation this is the first revolution they have experienced and I have to live it. I cannot leave my friends and family behind.”

But his is not a cavalier attitude. His voice is full of emotion; he is a man who loves his country and the diversity it offers.

He says the Arab Spring that started four years ago was a revolution against dictatorship. For the first time, people wanted to move away from the status quo they were accustomed to.

“We cannot stop or go back to a past life. What started in Tunisia came as a surprise for many in the West because they only equated the Arab world to oil and dictatorial governments. “The uprisings sent out the message that people existed and had other ideas about their future.”

My life is not important. I see death all around me and it becomes irrelevant

But while the Arab Spring in Tunisia brought about change and delivered a democratic government, not the same can be said of Syria.

President Assad still clings to power and what started as a civilian revolution has descended into a bloody conflict.

Mr Khalifa says too many foreign countries have a finger in the pie. It is not in the interest of certain powers that the will of the Syrian people prevails, he argues.

“Syria is in a mess. Iran, Russia, the US all had an interest to stop the Arab Spring in its tracks in Syria. It would have been dangerous for them if the revolution had spread to Saudi Arabia. And now the new enemy is radical Islam.”

He plays down the suggestion that Islamic State and its spread in Iraq and Syria are a threat to the Syrian people’s revolution.

He says the West has an interest in painting IS to be a big, strong enemy.

“IS is not big and strong. How many people do they have? If war ends in Syria and people have a project for the future, IS will finish. Their ways do not represent the thousands-of-years-old multicultured Syrian society. IS does not belong in Syria.”

He questions the provenance of IS’s funds and fears the organisation is the creation of foreign powers. Mr Khalifa draws parallels with al-Qaeda, which was born out of the Afghan mujahideen armed and supported by the US in their fight against the Soviet occupiers throughout the 1980s.

The Syrian conflict has been overshadowed by the rise of IS, taking heat off Syria’s President. But it is anything but over. Death and destruction are tangible and unending. Many still suffer.

Mr Khalifa argues a solution to the Syrian conflict is possible. “It is important for the war to stop, and Europe can help end it if it wants.”

The war has caused an earthquake in Syrian society and shaken writers. It blocks ideas and stifles creativity. Writers can do little to stop wars, he says, but they have a role to tell the truth for history’s sake. He smiles when I ask him whether he fears for his life in Damascus.

“My life is not important. I see death all around me and it becomes irrelevant. The important thing for me is to write what I feel,” he says.

And that is what he is doing at the Paceville coffee shops. He shies away from giving me an idea of when he intends to publish his next book.

“The book will be ready for publishing when I can no longer read it, because that is the sign it is time to let it go,” he says.

Let it go means Mr Khalifa will not read the published book. It also signals the end of his relationship with that work.

“I never read my own books. Once they are ready, the books are no longer mine,” he says.

But if his relationship with the book ends, not the same can be said of the tables in his favourite coffee shops in Paceville and Damascus. This relationship continues to develop.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com