Faraj Bayrakdar

Faraj Bayrakdar (Arabic: فرج بيرقدار; born 1951 in Tir Maaleh near Homs, Syria) is a Swedish-Syrian poet and writer. He was a political prisoner in his home country for almost 14 years. After an international campaign for his release and a presidential amnesty in 2000, he went into exile in Sweden in 2005. He is best known for his poetry collection A Dove in Free Flight, that was published without the author's knowledge while still in a Syrian prison. These poems were first published in Arabic and later translated into French and English. His work is part of contemporary Syrian prison literature.