Fadi Haddad, a 27-year-old young man from the city of Qatana in the Damascus countryside. In the morning, he is a student at the Higher Institute of Theater Arts and by noon, he is a bookseller, offering literary works under a main bridge in the heart of Damascus.
His passion for theater began in childhood when he was seven, he read his first novel and eventually guided him to study theater. Fadi describes theater as the "father of all arts" and sees Japanese theater as a way to understand reality through fantasy. He says, "I want to understand how people mocked their reality when they didn’t like it—through writing, poetry, and music."
However, Fadi lives in a country that was devastated by war and harsh economic sanctions. Which led him to set up a small stall under a crowded bridge to avoid municipal restrictions and to make some money from the books he finished reading.
Fadi sees himself as a playwright who dreams of one day writing his own theatrical novel. Telling his story, he says, "I am a theater student who sells books at a stall I named 'Fadi’s Library,' set up under a bridge in a city that was exhausted by monsters.”
