Booker-nominated writer for the thief in the Old Town: "Give back my poems"

- The novels borrow from reality, there are shards from my past, but I do not want to be nostalgic, but to pull it in a more grotesque direction, says author Mazen Maarouf when describing his debut collection Vitser for the militias.

There are screwed-up short stories with a constantly present fear, a wry sense of humor and sudden violence. Most are written from a child's perspective - a braver version of Mazen Maarouf himself.

- In the stories there is no beginning or end of the war, but the war is an endless state - we thought "this is life," he says.

Something that becomes very clear when you read the book is all the unwritten laws a young Beirut resident who wants to survive must learn.

"There is a judicial system, but then there is the militia and so you have the families connected to the different militias, and you have the children who are connected to the families that are connected to the militias," Mazen Maarouf says and continues:

- So you really have to be careful when fighting with another guy, because you don't want his dad to come and beat your dad.

Maarouf was not particularly interested in prose, it was his poems that, as stateless Palestinians in 2011, he obtained a two-year writer's residence in Reykjavik, Iceland, which eventually led to his becoming an Icelandic citizen.

- It is a strange place, which is difficult to leave. I really love it.

But if it had not been for a trip to the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, he would never have started writing these short stories. He had just admired all the Nobel laureates at the museum, sat down on a sheep in the Old Town, when a thief stole his notebook with all his poems.

He was furious, his creative ego beaten into rubble. But when I ask him now if he has something to say to the thief, if the thief happens to see the Culture News, he is slightly gentler in his tone.

- You actually did me a favor, when you got me to write short stories - so thank you!

- But I really hope you still have the notebook, and if you have it send it to me, because I still want to read those poems. I can send it back to you after that, if you want it as a souvenir, he ends his appeal to the thief in the Old Town.