A couple of weeks ago, sitting on a couch in her Bratislava flat, I listened to a young Syrian woman sing – not in Arabic or English, but in Slovak. Lara Abou Hamdan, a 25-year-old medical student and musician, has turned the language of her adopted country into lyrics that trace her life from Syria to Slovakia.
Lara Abou moved here with her family when she was 18. As a singer-songwriter, she has bridged both borders and cultures. Much like the legendary Middle Eastern storyteller Scheherazade, she has learnt to weave challenges into stories – stories she now tells through her music. After seven years in Slovakia, Lara’s journey reads like a contemporary tale of a thousand and one nights – not in palaces, but in the everyday rhythms of a new country.
Lara Abou web Máte problém s prehrávaním? Nahláste nám chybu v prehrávači.
Lara: My dad is an orthopaedic surgeon and he studied in Prague, so he knows Czech and therefore he also understands Slovaks. He found a job in Banská Bystrica and he moved, and then we moved after him. So, it was a sudden change. I’m really happy that we did that because in Syria I was at a point where I wanted more, I wanted to do more, but it wasn’t possible there due to many reasons. There weren’t many opportunities, the environment didn’t support your goals, right? Yeah, so it was harder there.
Her family’s journey was different from those who fled Syria during the migrant crisis of 2015. They arrived later, in 2018, following her father’s medical career. For Lara, the move was sudden but ultimately life-changing.
Lara: I can’t remember how I felt at that time, I just remember short moments that were important to me. For example, when my dad picked us up from the airport for the first time and how I ran to the door to hug my dad when I saw him. When I saw the nature here for the first time, I was like: “Oh my god, look at this country – wow!” You know the best part is that I used play a video game and it had exactly such nature and it was my dream to move to a country where there were mountains and lots of trees.
Lara comes from the Druze city of Suwayda in southern Syria. Earlier this summer, Suwayda made headlines for clashes between Bedouin tribal fighters and Druze factions – a reminder of the still fragile peace in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime last December. But the Syria Lara remembers is a different one – the home she grew up in.
Lara: What I would say about Syria – the way that I view it and the way that it actually is – is that it’s a very diverse country, because everyone from different backgrounds, different religions, all live there together in one place. And that was the Syria that I knew all my childhood – until a certain point, of course. It’s full of culture! The first alphabet created started there, many cultures started there. If you go to Syria, you’ll see a lot of historical monuments that tell us a lot about humanity. Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world. Syria was a country through which travelled rice, tea, all that you can imagine. So, imagine the mixture of culture that happened in Syria.
Lara points to Syria’s long history, as old as the ancient Silk Road which ran through it. Listening to her, it’s clear that she sees the country not just through the lens of conflict, but through the layers of history and cultural exchange that shaped it.
When I asked Lara about her childhood, she painted a picture of Suwayda.
Lara: I was born in a city called Suwayda, and it’s a very beautiful city with very simple traditions – very beautiful ones, very human ones – of hospitality. For example, we have a tradition in my city, where if a stranger comes to your house, you invite him in. For three days you feed him, you let him sleep, you take care of this stranger, and after three days you are allowed to ask: “What brings you here?” And this was a part of our culture in this city of Suwayda. But now, of course, you can not apply that anymore because it’s a different time for many reasons. But this what represents these people – hospitality, love towards nature, love towards each other. This is what I was raised in.
Even as these traditions have become harder to live out, they remain part of the values Lara exudes. That sense of openness was echoed inside her own home.
Lara: I was raised in a very open-minded family. My grandfather used to read a lot. We had this open source towards different cultures – so I was reading about religion, philosophy, poetry, from European literature as well. And definitely that prepared me for coming here, because when I came here, I didn’t feel like I was in a very different environment and I could adapt really quick.
Despite the distance between Syria and Slovakia, Lara quickly recognised something familiar.
Lara: I see a lot this hospitality here in Slovakia. For example, our neighbours, how they share apples with us because they have a lot in their garden; every time someone visited us, they brought something – they never came emptyhanded! And I started doing that myself. This is something I really appreciate and I find very common, because if we think about it, all of these things go back to our humanity or our human core.
For Lara, humanity is at the centre of her being. She described herself as someone guided by the present and curious about the world around her. Rather than dwelling on the past, she is shaped by her busy life here in Slovakia. Now in her fourth year of medical school in Bratislava, she has also studied music composition at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica.
Music remains her parallel life as a private passion and source of release.
Lara: I find this very magical… When I’m tired, when I’m burnt out, it’s where I’m broken-down and then some energy comes out – some inspiration – and then from that comes out the best lyrics.
Lara’s song ‘He Was’ was released last year to celebrate the life of her grandfather, who passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic in Syria. Not being able to say a proper goodbye was a deep wound for Lara.
Lara: The thing that affected me the most was that I’m not going to be seeing or spending time with my grandparents at all. We had this connection with them where every Friday we would go to their house, I would sit with my grandpa and play some guitar to him – it was his dream to play the guitar. He then later admitted to me: “You made my dream come true.”
Since arriving in Slovakia, Lara has become part of the country’s emerging music scene. She first stepped into the public eye in 2019 as a contestant on ‘Česko Slovensko má talent’ – or ‘Czechia-Slovakia’s Got Talent’ – and later through collaborations with Slovak artists, including Zuzana Mikulcová, Bobsan, and Fom.
She has since played numerous concerts and has toured Slovakia with her guitar.
Lara: You know for example with Zuzana Mikulcová it was an amazing thing because I was listening to her music and then someone told me: “Go text that person that you like their music.” So, then I did and she replied back and she gave me such an amazing experience because we made this collaboration and she gave me the space to sing in Arabic – usually I would sing in English. And then I had this song which was in Arabic and in English, and we agreed on making a part in Slovak. So then ‘Whisper’ came out of it.
That collaboration not only gave Lara space to sing in Arabic, but also pushed her to reflect on language itself.
It seems almost ironic that it took coming to Slovakia for her to start singing in Arabic. But in recent years, Lara has taken yet another step: writing songs in Slovak. Many young artists here are often criticised for singing only in English, neglecting their mother tongue in an effort to appeal to global audiences. Lara – a non-Slovak – has done the opposite.
Lara: It started coming out naturally. I think it’s part of self-expression because I suddenly started speaking Slovak. So, when I came to Slovakia, I started learning the language. Step-by-step I started trying to write lyrics and it was very hard because you have to get to a level where you understand this language very well, and then you can feel in the language, and understand the metaphors. So, I was looking for that and it took some time until I got there. For example, the latest song I wrote in Slovak – it’s called ‘Oheň’ or ‘Fire’ – it has a lot of metaphors, I realised that the metaphors that I had written were thought of in Arabic and the combination of words in the song were not usually used in the Slovak language. So, it makes this new experience of: “Will they understand what I want to say? Does it make sense?”
Even after years of living here and studying in Slovak, Lara still sees her music as a space of translation and exchange – a place where languages, metaphors, and meanings meet. And whether or not every listener catches every nuance, she trusts in the act of performance itself.
Lara: I love the Slovak audience because they pay attention, they actually listen. They’re not on their phones, they’re actually present so you can have this real connection – you know, when you’re playing music, you can look into each one’s eyes. You see that they’re actually listening, they’re engaged.
For Lara, that sense of connection is what matters most. Like Scheherazade, she spins her own tales – in Arabic, in Slovak, in English, in song. Each one is part of her thousand and one nights defined by the people, cultures, and the worlds she has called home.
Thank you to Lara Abou Hamdan for sharing her story and her music, and for showing us how creativity and culture can connect worlds that might otherwise seem removed.
Written and recorded by Gigi Green.
