Syrian novelist Nihad Sirees, Brown University’s 2012-13 International Writers Project fellow, has been named as the recipient of an English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation for his novel, The Silence and the Roar. The novel, translated by Max Weiss of Princeton University, centers on a day in the life of Fathi Schin, a well-known author who has been banned by the authorities from writing and publishing. The day in question is the 20th anniversary of the rise to power of the “Great Leader” who banned Schin’s work. Celebrations rage in the street as Schin seeks sanctuary at home with his loved ones. The Silence and the Roar will be published by the Pushkin Press, London, in January 2013; an American edition, by Other Press, will be available in March 2013. Sirees, a native of Aleppo, Syria, has been described as “the Kafka of the Middle East.”