Anise Boy: An Eternal Search for Love

A stirring memoir takes a novella approach to capturing memory, history, and a vivid home. It begins in 1946 with the Anise Boy just five years old, watching field workers plant anise seeds and reap the harvest in his Syrian village.

His vision for life gradually opens, owing partly to the artistic flair of the Roma, called gypsies then, who travel from village to village to perform after harvest season. After several years of drought, the boy’s father advises him to learn the tailoring profession in nearby Damascus while he makes sure to keep his nose in books as a last resort.

Eventually, he works as a teenage tailor, in a workshop surrounded by dozens of girls his age. Immersed in this atmosphere, he can’t help but compare the city girls to those who he’s grown up with back home. His feelings bloom beyond what his mind imagined, and he quickly discovers love’s potency. Through an entertaining and revealing journey, he finds that love itself is an eternal search.

About the Author:
Hsain Warour, (12/10/1941), known as the Author tailor, was born to a peasant family in the countryside of Damascus. After completing his primary education, he moved to Damascus in 1952 at the age of twelve to learn the profession of tailoring under the Armenian tailor Wahram Shahbandrian in the Al-Khaja Market.

Once he mastered tailoring, he worked in several clothing factories while also being passionate about books and writing at an early age. He spent his earnings on buying books, newspapers, and cultural magazines. His first poetic work was published in Al-Mawed, a Lebanese magazine in 1955 when he was just fourteen years old. This marked a turning point in his life and his immersion into the world of literature.

During his five-year mandatory military service, he obtained a secondary certificate and, before ending his service, earned a high school diploma through self-study. This helped him work later on in journalism and further pursue his interest in literature. In 1974, he moved to the city of Suweida in southern Syria to work as a tailor and gained great fame as a skilled craftsman. He also engaged in literary activities and served his community by helping establish a literary association that hosted numerous cultural events and invited Syrian and Arab writers and intellectuals. His tailor shop became a haven for writers and intellectuals.

After experiencing economic hardship and losing all his possessions, Warour moved from Suweida back to Damascus in the early 1990s. He lived in his village close to Damascus for about eight years before returning to Shahba City near Suweida, where he resumed his literary activities while working as a tailor.