Diana Darke

Diana Darke (born 6 March 1956) is an author, Middle East cultural expert, Arabist and occasional BBC broadcaster. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and Al Araby. She graduated from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1977, where she studied German and Philosophy/Arabic, then went on to work for the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Racal Electronics Plc as an Arabic consultant. In 2005, Diana purchased a 17th-century courtyard house in the Old City of Damascus, which enabled her to become deeply embedded in Syrian society and culture. Diana has returned seven times since the Rebellion began in March 2011 and her links inside the country are deep and ongoing. The house is currently lived in by Syrian refugee friends displaced from their own homes by shelling in the suburbs.

• Syria, Bradt Travel Guides, 2010, ISBN 978-1-841-62314-6.
• Oman, Bradt Travel Guides, 2010, ISBN 978-1-841-62332-0.
• North Cyprus, Bradt Travel Guides, 2012, ISBN 978-1-841-62372-6.
• Eastern Turkey, Bradt Travel Guides, 2014, ISBN 978-1-841-62490-7
• My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis, Haus Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-1-908-32399-6.[1]
• The Merchant of Syria: A History of Survival, Hurst Publishers, 2018, ISBN 978-1-84904-940-5.[2]
• The Last Sanctuary in Aleppo (co-author), Headline Publishing, 2019, ISBN 978-1-4722-6057-4.[3]
• Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe, Hurst Publishers, 2020, [4]