Yassin al-Haj Saleh (born 1961 in Raqqa, Syria) was a political prisoner between 1980 and 1996 for being a member in a Communist party opposing the regime of Hafez Assad. A journalist writing in newspapers and magazines in the Arab world, he also sometimes writes for English-speaking outlets. He has written seven books in Arabic about Syria, jail, contemporary Islam and Islamism, and culture. In English: The Impossible Revolution: Revolution, Civil War and the General War in Syria (Hurst, 2017), also available in French: La Question Syrienne (Actes Sud, 2016). He cofounded al Jumhuriya, a group that has been thinking and writing about Syrian affairs since March 2012: http://aljumhuriya.net/. He was awarded the Prince Claus Prize in 2012 and the Swedish Pen Club Prize in 2017, as well as fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for 2017–2018 and 2018–2019.