Ahmad Danny Ramadan

Ahmad Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker, storyteller and an LGBTQ-refugee activist. His English debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was released in May 2017 and won the Independent Publisher Book Award for Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans Fiction, the Canadian Authors Union’s 2018 Best Fiction award, and was named among the Best Books of 2017 by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. It was longlisted for Canada Reads 2018 and Shortlisted for the Evergreen Award 2018. It’s also a finalist for the Gay Fiction Category in the Lambda Awards.  He also translated Rafi Badawi’s 1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think, and has published two collections of short stories in Arabic.

As an LGBTQ activist, he has been involved in coordinating online and on the ground efforts to support Queer and Trans identifying refugees from Syria to immigrate to Canada. Danny runs the annual fundraiser An Evening in Damascus to support those efforts. He also runs the annual event, A Night of Storytelling, celebrating queer, trans and two-spirit authors in the Canlit community, since 2016.  He was appointed Grand Marshal for the Vancouver Pride Parade 2016 and was awarded the StandOut Award for his social activism, the RBC’s Top Immigrant in Canada award, and the Bonham Centre Award for Excellency.

Ramadan has served on the board of Vancouver Pride Society since September 2017, and is currently a Masters student at the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing Program.  He has lived with his fiancé in Vancouver since his arrival to Canada in 2014.