Raed Wahesh (born in Damascus in 1981) is a Palestinian-Syrian writer and journalist and one of the major Arabic poets of his generation. To date he has published four volumes of verse. Wahesh has developed over the years into a political writer who addresses social issues and makes a theme of war and destruction in his homeland. He has been supporting the Syrian revolution with his writing from the very beginning as a defender of freedom of opinion and of freedom of the word.
Wahesh has worked as a cultural editor for various Arabic-language newspapers and websites. His 2015 prose volume A Missing Piece of Damascus’ Sky is based on his experiences during the revolution. His most recent texts deal with issues of exile. expulsion and deracination. Raed Wahesh fled Syria in 2013 and came to Germany, where he was initially a guest in the Heinrich Böll House. He now lives in Hamburg.