the Street Philosopher and Holy Fool

The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool chronicles a series of friendships and conversations pursued over ten years with an erratic cast of Syrians that includes Abed, the unemployable 'street philosopher' and Sulayman, 'the holy fool', alongside Myrna, a Christian healer marked by the stigmata of Christ, Abu al-Talib, the prince of fools and Father Paolo, the Desert Father of Deir Mar Musa monastery. In the company of a witty, irreverent Canadian poet with a gift for listening, we touch on madness and divine possession, alchemy and the Sufi masters, melancholia and the marriage of true minds. We inhabit the dreams, fears and aspirations of the old Levantine Syria, a fascinating flux of faiths in the years before the mobile telephone and a mere decade before civil war tore this nation apart. It is a precious gift, bearing testimony to the tolerant coexistence which made the country so attractive, and which will hopefully one day be reestablished.

Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool Marius Kociejowski presents the reader with a completely fresh and unexpected face of Syria. This ancient land is only slowly opening up to foreign travellers and remains for many a sinister and forbidding destination.