I’m Zaher “Zack” Alajlani, a Syrian fiction writer, researcher, and translator living between Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and Athens, Greece.

I’ve published four short-story collections in English and one in Arabic, and my fiction and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies around the world. Two of my stories—Saint Catalina and Veorica—were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. I also contributed to No More Haunted Dolls, a critical volume on horror tropes in literature, film, and video games that was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction.

I hold degrees from Damascus University, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the University of Indianapolis, and a PhD in Literature from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca.

My research explores morality, religion, meaning, mad science, Jungian archetypes, and early modern horror literature.

I speak English, Arabic, Romanian, and Greek. When I’m not writing, I’m usually running or playing video games.