Rasha Abbas is a Syrian journalist and short story writer. Born in Latakia and brought up in Damascus, she studied journalism at Damascus University. While working as an editor for television, she published her first short story collection entitled Adam hates TV (2008). After joining the anti-government protests in 2011, she had to leave her country, moving first to Beirut and later to Germany. She is currently based in Berlin where she is culture editor at the prominent Syrian opposition media outlet Aljumhuriya.net. She has held a number of fellowships and writing residencies across Europe and North America, and takes part in cultural festivals. She co-wrote the script for a short film, Happiness and Bliss (2013), produced by Bedayat, and contributed, both as a writer and as a translator, to Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (2014), published by Saqi Books. She has published two short story collections (The Invention of German, 2016 and The Gist of It, 2017) and is currently working on her first novel and her fourth short story collection.
In 2022, her short story collection The Gist of It was adapted for stage and performed in three languages at Berlin’s Gorki theatre as Eine Zusammenfassung von allem, was war.
